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IE ACHlKVEPllilN 1 Ut 

IE BRITISH NAVY IN 
THE WORLD WAIL 




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I 

THE ACfflEVEMENT of the BRITISH NAVY 
W THE WORLD-WAR :: JOHN LEYLAND 



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THE KING CHATTING WITH ADMIRAL BEATTY 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE 

BRITISH NAVY IN THE 

WORLD-WAR 



BY 

JOHN LEYLAND 




ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



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CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Duties and Responsibilities of the 

Sea Service i 

II. The Centre of Sea-Power .... ii 

III. Sweeping the Enemy from the Oceans 21 

IV. The Grasp of the Mediterranean: 

Sea- and Land-Power 29 

V. Dealing with the Submarines ... 37 

VI. The Navy and the Mine ..... 46 

Vn. The Navy and Army Transport . . 55 

VIII. The Navy that Flies ...... 64 

IX. Officers and Men of the Navy . . 71 

X. What the British Navy is and What 

IT Fights for 79 



[V 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The King Chatting with Admiral Beatty 

Frontispiece 

PAGE 

A British Fleet Steaming in Line Ahead . . 6 

Drifters Working at Sea 6 

A Drifter at Sea: Looking for Submarines 

AND Mines 22 

A Drifter Laying Anti-Submarine Nets . . 22 

Fleets in Alliance: British and Italian 

Ships in the Adriatic ....... 38 

On Board the Queen Elizabeth at Mudros . . 38 

A Fleet Manceuvring at Sea 64 

The Captured German Submarine Mine- 
Layer UCs 64 

A British Submarine 80 

Journalists on Board a Monitor .... 80 



MAPS: 

I.— The Centre of Sea-Power: The 
North Sea 

IL— The Grasp of the Mediterranean; 
Sea- and Land-Power 



vS 



At end 
0} book 



THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE BRITISH 
NAVY IN THE WORLD-WAR 



CHAPTER I 
Duties and Responsibilities of the Sea Service 

Had I the fabled herb 
That brought to life the dead, 

Whom would I dare disturb 
In his eternal bed? 

Great Grenville would I wake, 

And with glad tidings make 

The soul of mighty Drake 
Lift an exulting head. 

William Watson. 

WHEN King George returned from the visit 
he paid to the Grand Fleet in June, 1917, 
he sent a message to Admiral Sir David 
Beatty, who had succeeded Sir John Jellicoe in the 
command, in which he said that "never had the 
British Navy stood higher in the estimation of friend 
or foe." His Majesty spoke of people who reason 
and understand. But it is certainly true that the 
work of the Sea Service during this unparalleled war 
has never been properly appreciated by many of 
those who have benefited by it most. The silent 
Navy does its work unobserved. The record of its 
heroism and the services it renders pass unobserved 
by the multitude. Sometimes it emerges to strike a 
blow, engage in a "scrap," or, it may be, to fight 
a battle, and then it retires into obscurity again. Its 
achievements are forgotten. Only the bombardment 
of a coast town or the torpedoing of a big ship, which 

I 



2 The Achievement of the British Navy 

the Navy did not frustrate, is remembered. Such has 
been the case in all the naval campaigns of the past. 
Englishmen, who depend upon the Navy for their 
security and the means of their life and livelihood, 
as well as for their power of action against their 
enemies, are but half conscious of what the Fleet is 
doing for them. On this matter, British statesmen, 
when they speak about the war, almost invariably 
fail to enlighten them. 

Who can wonder that people in the Allied countries 
are still less able to realise that behind all the fighting 
of their own armies lies the influence of sea-power, 
exercised by the British Fleet and the fleets that 
came one after another into co-operation with it? 
Without this power of the sea there could have been 
no hope of success in the war. As the King said, 
the Navy defends British shores and commerce, and 
secures for England and her Allies the ocean highways 
of the world. The purpose of this book is to show 
how these things are done. 

On the first day of hostilities the British Navy 
laid hold upon the road that would lead to victory. 
There is no hyperbole in saying that the Grand 
Fleet, in its northern anchorages, from the very 
beginning, influenced the military situation through- 
out the world, and made possible many of the opera- 
tions of the armies, which could neither have been 
successfully initiated nor continued without it. But 
in the early days of August, 19 14, when, from the 
war cloud which had overshadowed Europe, broke 
forth the lurid horrors of the conflict, the situation 
was extremely critical. What was required to be 



Responsibilities of the Sea Service 3 

done had to be done quickly and unhesitatingly, lest 
the enemy should strike an unforeseen blow. Happily, 
with faultless knowledge, the strategy of the emer- 
gency was realised, and with unerring instinct and 
sagacity it was applied. The foresight of great naval 
administrators, and chiefly of Lord Fisher, who had 
brought about the regeneration of the British Navy, 
shaping it for modern conditions, was justified a 
thousandfold. 

Never was the need of exerting sea command more 
urgent than at the outbreak of war. Everything 
that Englishmen had won in all the centuries of the 
storied past was involved in the quarrel. Only by 
mastery of the sea could the country be made 
secure. Its soil had never been trodden by an 
invader since Norman William came in 1066. The 
very food that was eaten and the things by which 
the industries and commerce of the country existed 
demanded control at sea. If the British Empire was 
to be safe from aggression it must be safeguarded on 
every sea. If England was to set armies in any 
foreign field of operations, and to retain and main- 
tain them there, with the gigantic supplies they 
would require; if she was to render help to her 
Allies in men or munitions or anything else, whether 
they came from England, or the United States, or 
any other country, and were landed in France, 
Russia, Italy, or Greece, or in Egypt, Mesopotamia, 
or East or West Africa, for the defeat of the enemy, 
that must be done by virtue of power at sea. There- 
fore, in this war, as John HoUond, writing his Dis- 
course of the Navy in 1638, said of the wars of his 



4 The Achievement of the British Navy 

time, "the naval part is the thread that runs through 
the whole wooft, the burden of the song, the scope of 
the text." 

The moment when the First Fleet, as it was then 
called, slipped away from its anchorage at Portland 
on the morning of Wednesday, July 29th, 19 14, will 
yet be regarded as one of the decisive moments of 
history. The initiative had been seized, and all real 
initiative was thenceforward denied to the enemy. 
The gauge of victory had been won. "Time is every- 
thing; j5ve minutes makes the difference between a 
victory and a defeat," said Nelson. "The advantage 
and gain of time and place will be the only and 
chief means for our good," Drake had said before 
him. By a fortunate circumstance, which should 
have arrested the imagination as with a presage of 
victory — a circumstance arranged five months before, 
as the result of a series of most intricate prepara- 
tions — time and place were both on the British side. 

The First, Second, and Third Fleets, and the 
flotillas attached to them, had been mobilised as a 
test operation, and inspected at Spithead by King 
George, on July 20th. The First Fleet had returned 
to Portland and the other fleets to their home ports, 
where the surplus or "balance" crews of the Naval 
Reserves were to be sent on shore. Then had come 
the now famous order to "stand fast," issued on 
the night of Sunday, July 26th, which had stopped 
the process of demobilisation. Dark clouds had 
shadowed the international horizon. Austria-Hungary 
had presented her ultimatum to Serbia. She declared 
war on the 28th. The Second Fleet remained, 



Responsibilities of the Sea Service 5 

therefore, in proximity to its reserves of men, and the 
men were ready to be re-embarked in the Third Fleet. 

Few people realised at the time the immense sig- 
nificance of the memorable eastward movement of the 
squadrons from Portland Roads, or of the assembly 
of those powerful forces at their northern strategic 
anchorages. Those forces became the Grand Fleet, 
that unexampled organisation of fighting force, under 
command of that fine sea officer, Admiral Sir John 
Jellicoe. War was declared by Great Britain on 
August 4th. Successive steps of supreme importance 
were taken, which, in very truth, saved the cause of 
the Allies. Disaster and surprise attack were fore- 
stalled. The Fleet, fully mobilised, and growing daily 
in strength, was already exerting command of the 
sea, and the safe transport of the Expeditionary Force 
to France was assured. Co-operation with the 
French Fleet was immediately established — its cruiser 
squadron in the Channel and its battle squadrons in 
the Mediterranean. 

Fighting episodes were not delayed, but for many 
months the operations of the Grand Fleet remained 
shrouded as by a veil, lifted only on rare occasions. 
Few people knew the tremendous anxieties and 
responsibilities of the British Commander-in-Chief. 
His vast command of vessels of all classes and uses 
had to be organised into a mighty fleet, complete in 
every element — battle squadrons, battle-cruiser squad- 
rons, light-cruiser squadrons, flotillas and auxiliaries, 
transports, hospital ships, and every ship and thing 
that a fleet can require. A whole series of intricate 
dispositions had to be made. Officers were to be 



6 The Achievement of the British Navy 

inspired with the ideas of the Commander-in-Chief and 
the whole Fleet was to be so trained, under squadron 
and flotilla commanders, that each would know on the 
instant how he should act. 

If Nelson, in 1789, spent many hours in explaining 
to his "band of brothers" his plans for his attack at 
the Nile, with fourteen sail-of-the-line, what must it 
have been for Sir John Jellicoe to communicate to his 
officers, and discuss with them, all his plans for every 
emergency or call for the service of every squadron 
and ship in his vast command? All this must be 
realised now. And during the anxious early months 
of the war, as the winter was drawing near, the great 
anchorages were as yet unprotected, and safety from 
hostile submarines could often only be found in rapid 
steaming at sea. The mining campaign of the enemy 
had also to be overcome. The anxieties were 
enormous, and it was only the power of command, the 
sea instinct, the deep understanding, the readiness to 
act in moments of extraordinary responsibility, and 
the resource and professional skill of the Commander- 
in-Chief and his staff and officers in command, that 
enabled the tremendous work to be accomplished. 

While this was in progress other work of immense 
significance had been going on. The Admiralty had 
undertaken a gigantic task of supreme importance 
with complete success. Great defensive preparations 
were made in British waters, where all traffic was 
regulated and controlled. The vasu maritime re- 
sources of the country were added to the naval 
service. Two battleships building for Turkey, another 
for Chile, and certain flotilla leaders and other craft 



4. 



^ 




^ 



■ I 

iir,5 ^ 



Responsibilities of the Sea Service 7 

building in the country, were taken over. Officers 
and men in abundance were ready. The magnificent 
seafaring populations of the merchant marine and 
the fisheries were drawn into the naval service, and 
subsequently the whole mercantile marine was 
brought under naval control, and for practical 
purposes was embodied with the Navy. Officers and 
men of these services showed splendid heroism in situ- 
ations of terror and responsibility never anticipated. 

A wide network of patrols was brought into being; 
the blockade was organised and strengthened; the 
examination services were set on foot and perfected; 
and the coast sectors of defence, with their flotillas, 
were raised to a standard of high efficiency. Mine- 
sweepers and net-drifters were at work. Every ship- 
yard in the country and a multitude of engineering 
and ammunition works began to buzz with work for 
the Navy and the mercantile marine. Provision was 
made for dealing with the raiding cruisers and armed 
merchantmen of the enemy. 

At the time, the public knew little or nothing of 
what was in progress. Imagination fails even now 
to grasp the magnitude of what was achieved. The 
naval share in the campaign was of baffling obscurity, 
while the stage of the war on land became crowded 
with fighting men, locked in a terrible conflict, which 
at that time seemed to bode no good to the Allies. 
After the brush in the Heligoland Bight on August 
28th, 1914, the Fleet was lost to view. Not 
at first, but slowly, did it become realised that 
the prognostications of peace-time alarmists had 
proved baseless. There had been no "bolt from 



8 The Achievement of the British Navy 

the blue," as had been foretold; neither invasion, 
nor raid, nor foray was attempted upon British shores, 
and there was no anxiety about food. There was 
always, with economy, enough to eat. 

But popular confidence seemed for a time to be 
um-easonably disturbed by a record of successive 
alarming and generally unexplained incidents — the 
escape of the Goeben and Breslau in the Mediter- 
ranean, the sinking of the Aboukir, Cressy, Hogue, 
Formidable, and other vessels, the depredations of 
German raiding cruisers on the distant lines of our 
trade, the bombardment of Hartlepool, Whitby, and 
Scarborough, and other disquieting episodes. Strange 
as it may seem, there were people who went about 
asking, "What is the Fleet doing?" Was it not the 
ancient inspiration of the Navy to seek out the 
enemy and to capture or sink or burn his ships 
wherever they were to be found? Yet there was no 
battle. The German coast was not attacked. Allied 
shipping to the value of millions of pounds 
was being sunk. Why, then, was the Navy inactive? 
When, later on, the submarine menace assumed 
formidable proportions, alarm began again to seize 
upon the newspapers, when there was justification 
only for precaution. 

The hidden truth was not comprehended. Vic- 
tories were expected when, owing to the coyness of 
the enemy's strategy, none were possible. The Seven 
Years' War — the most successful in British annals, 
the turning-point in British history, the war in 
which Horace Walpole asked each morning what 
victory there was to record — ^began with the 



Responsibilities of the Sea Service 9 

disaster of Minorca, followed by the tragedy of 
Byng. The central facts of naval history were 
but little known. Yet the Navy was, and is, in 
truth, all in all to the country, the Empire, and 
the Allies. 

Before we enter into the main purpose of this book, 
in which we shall discover in several theatres of war 
the real nature of sea-power, as well as the character 
and momentous consequences of the antagonism which 
grew up between England and Germany, we may 
inquire what services could in reason have been 
expected from the Navy in the great cataclysm which 
was about to sweep with destruction over the nations. 
It would not have been expected to fight a battle 
every month or even every year, for battles are rare 
events in naval history. It would not have been 
expected to attack fortified coasts, though it might do 
so on occasions, because ships are designed and built 
to fight at sea. The Navy would not have been 
expected to forestall every untoward incident. Fish 
often slip through the net, as raiders have slipped 
through our guard in this and other wars. Nor, in 
these days of the stealthy submarine and the blind 
death-dealing mine, could the Fleet have been 
expected to remain immune from every misfortune. 
No one could have expected the Navy to devise a 
single conclusive defence against the attack of the 
submarine, any more than it was asked to find an 
infallible remedy for the effects of gunfire. 

What we should have expected was that it would 
make the sea again the protecting wall, as Shake- 
speare says, of the British Isles, 



10 The Achievement of the British Navy 

Or as a moat defensive to a house 
Against the envy of less happier lands. 

We should have expected it to safeguard the incoming 
of the supplies without which neither the people nor 
their industries could exist — to be the panoply of all 
trade and interests afloat, whether in the nature of 
imports or exports. We should have expected it to 
deny all external activity to the enemy at sea — we 
might not have anticipated the advent of the sub- 
marine as a pirate commerce-destroyer — to shut off 
his sea-borne supplies, and to exert that noiseless 
pressure on the vitals of the adversary of which 
Admiral Mahan speaks — ^'^that compulsion, whose 
silence, when once noted, becomes to the observer 
the most striking and awful mark of the working of 
sea-power." We should have expected the Navy to 
become the support, in thrust and holding, of the 
armies in the field — the shaft to their spearhead; 
their flank and rearguard also. Inasmuch as the 
war is world-wide, and we have powerful Allies, we 
should have expected naval influence and pressure to 
be manifested in the oceans, in the Mediterranean, 
and, indeed, wherever the enemy is and the seas are. 
Finally, we should have expected the Navy to be to 
the British Empire what it has always been to the 
Empire's heart — its safeguard from injury and dis- 
ruption, and the bond that holds it together. 

Each one of these functions has been executed by 
in Navy with triumphant success in the war, and 
history would show that it is executing them now as 
the Sea Service has accomplished them in all the wars 
of the past. 



CHAPTER II 
The Centre of Sea-Power 

Of speedy victory let no man doubt, 

Our worst work's past, now we have found them out. 

Behold, their navy does at anchor lie. 

And they are ours, for now they cannot fly. 

Andrew Marvell, 1653. 

OF all the theatres of the war, on sea or land, 
the North Sea is the most important. It is 
vital to all the operations of the Allies. 
Command of its waters and its outlets is the thing 
that matters most. In that sea is the centre of 
naval influence. It is the key of all the hostilities. 
From either side of it the great protagonists in the 
struggle look at one another. There the great 
constriction of the blockade is exerted upon 
Germany. It is the mare clausum against which she 
protests. Geography is there in the scales against 
her. She rebels against British sea supremacy. 
The "freedom of the seas" is, therefore, her claim — 
though she is endeavouring to qualify to be the tyrant 
of them. Her only outlook towards the outer seas is 
from the Bight of Heligoland and the fringe of coast 
behind the East Frisian Islands, or from the Baltic, 
if her ships pass the Sound or the Belt, issuing into 

See Map I., at end of book. 
11 



12 The Achievement of the British Navy 

the North Sea through the Skager-Rak. But they 
cannot reach the ocean, except through the North 
Passage, where the Grand Fleet holds the guard. 
Only isolated raiders, bent upon predatory enterprise, 
have stealthily gone that way after nightfall. At the 
southern gate of the North Sea, through the Straits 
of Dover and in the Channel, the way is barred. 
The guns of Dover, the Dover Patrol, and certain 
other deterrents forbid the enemy to adventure in 
that direction. 

The new engines of naval warfare — the mine, 
submarine, airship, and aeroplane — found their first 
and greatest use in the North Sea; and only by 
employing craft which hide beneath the water, and, 
on rare occasions, by destroyers which seek the cover 
of darkness for local forays, have the Germans been 
able to exert their efforts in any waters outside the 
North Sea. At the beginning of the war they had 
raiding cruisers in the Pacific and Atlantic, and a 
detached squadron in the Far East; but the British 
Fleet reached out to those regions, and, aided by the 
warships of Japan and France, it drove every vestige 
of German naval power from the oceans. 

In the North Sea, therefore, sea-power has exerted 
its greatest, most vital, and most far-reaching effect. 
There the Germans, if they had possessed the power, 
could have struck a blow which, if successful for 
them, would have proved a mortal stroke at the 
British Empire and would have rendered useless all 
the efforts of the Allies. Millions of men, incalculable 
volumes of guns, munitions, and stores of every imag- 
inable kind for the use of the greatest armies ever 



The Centre of Sea-Power 13 

set in the field, have entered the French ports solely 
because the Grand Fleet holds the guard in the 
North Sea. The whole face of the world would have 
been changed by German naval victory. England 
would have been subjected by invasion and famine. 
If the heart of the Empire had been struck, what 
would have been the future of its members? If sea 
communication with the Allies had been cut, what 
would have been their fate at the hands of the victors? 
The attacks of sallying cruisers and destroyers upon 
the coast towns of England, the "tip and run" raids, 
as they have been called, and the visits of bomb- 
dropping airships and aeroplanes are the signs of the 
naval impotence of Germany. 

The situation in the North Sea is, therefore, of 
absorbing interest. It may be studied chiefly from 
the two points of view of the strategy of the opposing 
fleets and the exercise of the blockade. There is a 
peculiarity in naval warfare, which is not found in 
warfare upon land, that a belligerent can withdraw 
his naval forces entirely from the theatre of war by 
retaining them, as with a threat, or in a position of 
weakness, behind the guns of his shore defences. 
Nothing of the kind is possible with land armies. A 
general can always find his enemy, and attack or 
invest him, and, if successful, drive him back, or 
cause him to surrender, and occupy the territory he 
has held. The Germans have chosen the reticent 
strategy of the sea. They have never come out to 
make a fight to a finish, to put the matter to the 
touch, "to gain or lose it all." The animus pugnandi 
is wanting to their fleet. It was necessary that they 



14 The Achievement of the British Navy 

should do something. They could not lie for ever 
stagnant at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. They could 
keep their officers and men in training by making 
brief cruises in and outside the Bight of Heligoland. 
They might, with luck, meet some portion of the 
Grand Fleet detached and at a disadvantage. 

In any case, they were bold enough to take their 
chance on occasions, always with their fortified ports 
and mined waters and their submarines under their 
lee. They might succeed in reducing British supe- 
riority by the "attrition" of some encounters. Such 
was the genesis of the Dogger Bank battle of 
January 24th, 1915, when that gallant officer Sir 
David Beatty inflicted a severe defeat upon Admiral 
Hipper, and drove him back in flight, with the loss 
of the Blucher and much other injury. The same 
causes brought the German High Sea Fleet, under 
Admiral Scheer, into the great conflict, first with Sir 
David Beatty, and then with the main force of the 
Grand Fleet, imder command of Sir John Jellicoe, 
on May 31st, 19 16. The events of the great engage- 
ment of the Jutland Bank will not be related here. 
All that it is necessary to note is that the Germans 
had so chosen their time that they were able to 
avoid decisive battle with Sir John Jellicoe's fleet by 
retreating in the failing light of the day, and that 
their adventure availed them nothing to break the 
blockade or otherwise to modify the impotent position 
in which they are placed at sea. That action operated 
to the disadvantage of England and her Allies in no 
degree whatever. The superiority of the British Fleet 
as a fighting engine had been placed beyond dispute. 



The Centre of Sea-Power 15 

The mine and the submarine have put an end to 
the system of naval blockade as practised by St. 
Vincent and Cornwallis. No fleet can now lie off, 
or within striking range of, an enemy's port. Battle- 
ships cannot be risked against submarines, acting 
either as torpedo craft or mine-layers, nor against 
swift destroyers at night. That is the explanation 
of the situation which has arisen in the North Sea. 
The blockade is necessarily of a distant kind. There 
are no places on the British coasts where the Grand 
Fleet could be located, except those in which it lies 
and from which it issues to sweep the North Sea 
periodically. The first essential is to control the 
enemy's conununications, which is done effectively at 
the North Passage — ^between the Orkneys and 
Shetlands, and the Norwegian coast — and at the 
Straits of Dover. If the enemy desired a final 
struggle for supremacy at sea, with all its tremendous 
consequences, he could have it. But he can be 
attacked only when he is accessible. "There shall 
be neither sickness nor death which shall make us 
yield until this service be ended," wrote Howard in 
1588. That is the spirit of the British Navy to-day. 
But, then, the Spanish Armada was at sea. It was 
not hiding behind its shore defences. Be it noted 
that the Germans, thus hiding themselves, enjoy a 
certain opportunity of undertaking raiding operations 
in the North Sea. It is not a difficult thing to rush a 
force of destroyers on a dark night against some point 
in an extended line of patrols and effect a little damage 
somewhere. What advantage the Germans hope to 
gain by such proceedings is difficult to discover. 



16 The Achievement of the British Navy 

The magnificence of the work of the British patrol 
flotillas and the auxiliary patrols must be recognised. 
In the North Sea these are subsidiary services of the 
Grand Fleet. Day and night, in every weather — 
in summer heats and winter blasts and blizzards, 
when icy seas wash the boats from stem to stern and 
the cold penetrates to the bone — these patrols are 
at work. The records of heroism at sea in these 
services have never been surpassed, and England owes 
a very great deal to the men who came to her service. 
The mercantile marine has given its vessels to the 
State, from the luxurious liner to the fishing trawler, 
and officers and men have come in who have rendered 
priceless services. The trawlers have carried on their 
perilous work of bringing up the strange harvest of 
horned mines by the score. The patrol boats have 
examined suspicious vessels, controlled sea traffic, and 
watched the sea passages. The destroyer flotillas 
have been constantly at work and ready at any time 
to bring raiding enemy forces to action. The Royal 
Naval Air Service has never relaxed its activity and 
has engaged in countless combats. 

It has sometimes been wondered why the Grand 
Fleet did not take some aggressive action: Why did 
it not attack the North German sea coast, or rout out 
the pestilent hornets' nest of Zeebrugge, which the 
enemy, by internal communications impregnable to 
sea-power, had provided with the most powerful guns, 
besides defending it by great mine-fields? This mat- 
ter requires to be examined. Naval history abounds 
with evidence that to attack coast defences is not the 
proper or even the permissible work of warships. It 



The Centre of Sea-Power 17 

is the business of military forces, though naval forces 
may often assist, and even give the means of victory. 
Moreover, what was once possible is not possible now. 
Would Nelson have attacked the French Fleet at the 
Nile if it had lain under the powerful guns of these 
days, and behind mine-fields, through the secret pas- 
sages of which submarines could have issued to 
destroy him? It would be absurd to compare Nelson's 
attack upon a line of block-ships and rafts at Copen- 
hagen, covered by a few forts armed with old smooth- 
bores, to an attack upon coast positions defended by 
modern guns. 

When old Sir Charles Napier was in the Baltic in 
1854 he was denounced at home because he did not 
destroy Kronstadt or Helsingfors. He rightly refused 
to play his enemy's game by endangering his ships. 
Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir) B. J. Sulivan, who 
was with the fleet, put the situation quite clearly in a 
letter written at the time. A military operation 
was really required then, as it would be now, to 
accomplish such a task. 

We know that two guns have beaten off two large 
ships with great loss. Had Nelson been here with 
thirty English ships he would have blockaded the 
gulf for years, without thinking of attacking such 
fortresses to get at ships inside. Brest, Toulon, and 
Cadiz were probably much weaker than these 
places. ... I suppose there will be an outcry at 
home about doing nothing here, but we might as 
well try to reach the moon. 

But the Navy has never left the Belgian coast 
secure from attack. It has never lost its aggressive 



18 The Achievement of the British Navy 

spirit. It has attacked from the ship and the air. 
The seaplanes of the Royal Naval Air Service 
spotted for the guns when the monitors were bom- 
barding. Bombs have repeatedly been dropped on 
Ostend, Zeebrugge, and the places in the rear. 
When the guns were silent there were reasons for it. 
A conjoint naval and military expedition was required. 
The enemy began to feel his hold on the coast pre- 
carious. Continued operations by sea and land might 
compel him to relax his grasp. Ships may not attack 
places defended by big guns, mine-fields, and subma- 
rines and destroyers issuing from secret passages 
through them, but it is certain the British naval 
offensive will never be paralysed. 

Such is the magnificent work of the British Navy 
in blockading the German Fleet, molesting the 
enemy's coast positions, and controlling his com- 
munications with the oceans. 

The commercial blockade, by which the enemy's 
supplies and commodities are cut off and his exports 
paralysed, is too large a subject to be dealt with here. 
The object is to bring the full measure of sea-power 
to bear in crushing the national life of the enemy. It 
is vital but "silent" work of the Navy, and does not 
lend itself to discussion or description. Questions of 
contraband and the right and method of search, which 
arise from the blockade, caused discussions with the 
United States before the States came into the war. 
The only object of the British Navy and the Foreign 
Office was to put an end to the transit of the enemy's 
commodities, and to do so with the utmost considera- 
tion for the interests of neutrals, and complete pro- 



The Centre of Sea-Power 19 

tection for the lives of the officers and crews in their 
ships and in the examining ships. For these reasons 
neutral vessels were taken into port for examination, 
safe from the attentions of the enemy's submarines. 
One great hope of the Germans was that the neutrals 
would become more and more exasperated with 
England. They remembered that the war of 1812 
arose from this very cause. But they were com- 
pletely disappointed in all such hopes, and they 
themselves, by interfering with the free navigation 
of other countries, brought the United States into the 
war against them. 

The blockade work of the examination service and 
of the armed boarding steamers has been extremely 
hazardous. It has called for the greatest qualities 
of seamanship, because conducted in every condition 
of weather and when storm and fog have made it 
extremely perilous to approach the neutral vessels 
— which, moreover, have sometimes proved to be 
armed enemies in disguise. Hundreds of vessels have 
been brought into port by the Navy in those northern 
waters. Sleepless vigilance has been required and the 
highest skill of the sea in every possible condition of 
the service, while the seaman has become a statesman 
in his dealings with the neutral shipmaster. It has 
been for the Navy to bring the ships into port, and for 
other authorities to inquire into their status and to 
take them before the Prize Court if required. 

The German High Sea Fleet having failed, the 
submarine campaign was instituted, and began 
chiefly in the North Sea. It has never answered the 
expectations of its authors. It has not changed the 



20 The Achievement of the British Navy 

strategic situation in any degree whatever. Great 
damage has been inflicted upon British interests, 
and valuable ships and cargoes have been sunk, and 
officers and men cast adrift in situations of ruthless 
hardship. The tale of the sea has never had a more 
terrible record, nor one lighted by so much noble 
self-sacrifice and unfailing courage. 



CHAPTER III 

Sweeping the Enemy from the Oceans 

Far flung the Fleet then, 

Freeing the seas, 
Clearing the way for men, 

Merchantmen these. 
Sinking or flying, 

Broken their power, 
The enemy dying 

Left England her dower. 

/. L. 

IN the foregoing chapter some reference was made 
to the campaign of the German raiding cruisers 
and armed liners against British and Allied 
commerce in the distant waters of the Atlantic and 
Pacific during the early months of hostilities, and 
before we go any further this aspect of the war must 
be discussed. One object of the enemy was to lead 
to a scattering of British naval strength, but in this 
he was wholly disappointed. The distribution of the 
British Fleet remained unchanged, and the great 
numbers of swift cruisers and armed liners, which 
had been apprehended as presenting a formidable 
menace to commerce, made but a feeble appearance. 
The commerce-raiding campaign gave rise, however, 
to a good deal of alarm at the time, though it sur- 
prised no one who understood the means made avail- 
able by the scientific and mechanical developments 

21 



22 The Achievement of the British Navy 

of modern naval warfare, and who had studied them 
in the Hght of history. 

The interruption or destruction of the enemy's 
commerce has always been one of the objects in 
naval warfare. British floating commerce offered a 
very large target, and the swift German cruisers, 
directed by wireless telegraphy and supplied by 
friendly neutrals, were at work on the lines followed 
by shipping, making it inevitable that there should 
at first be considerable losses to the Allies. Admiral 
Mahan thought that the British total losses in the 
long wars of the French Revolution and Empire 
did not exceed 2j^ per cent, of the commerce of the 
Empire. The Royal Commission on the Supply of 
Food in Time of War expressed the opinion that 
4 per cent, would have been a more accurate estimate. 

German cruisers, destructive as a few of them were, 
did not inflict losses amounting to anything like the 
figures of the old wars. In those contests of power, 
notwithstanding the depredations of commerce- 
destroying frigates, British oversea trade grew, 
while that of the enemy withered away. If the 
enemy captured ten British ships out of a thousand 
the loss might be considered serious, but if the 
British frigates captured ten out of the enemy's 
hundred the injury inflicted was ten times more 
effective. Towards the end of the long war with 
France very few French traders were captured 
because scarcely any ventured to sea, while the 
French continued to capture English ships up to 
the very end of the war, ten years after their fleet had 
been destroyed at Trafalgar. The loss by capture 



Sweeping the Oceans 23 

and sinking was at the rate of 500 ships a year, and 
even in 1810, 619 English ships were lost. 

In the present war the German commerce- 
destroying campaign, by means of cruisers and 
armed liners, though very effective at the beginning, 
collapsed with great rapidity. Hostile action against 
trade has never before been so rapidly brought 
under control. Steam, the telegraph, and wireless 
have enormously increased, as compared with the 
sailing days, the thoroughness and efficiency of 
superior sea-power. Difficulty of providing for coal 
and oil supply, the want of naval repairing and 
docking bases, and, above all, the immense superiority 
brought quickly to bear by the combined naval 
forces of England, France, and Japan, aided by the 
Australian Navy (auxiliary to the British, to which 
it belonged), within a comparatively short time 
caused the whole of German commerce to disappear 
from the oceans. Soon not a single ship remained — 
trader, cruiser, or armed liner— as a target, except that 
such isolated raiders as the Mowe might offer rare 
opportunities of attack. This failure of the Germans 
seemed the more remarkable because they had long 
recognised the floating commerce of England to be 
her Achilles' heel. Prince Bulow described it as such. 
They had expressly reserved, at The Hague Confer- 
ence, the right to convert merchantmen into cruisers 
on the high seas to serve as commerce-destroyers. 
They used this right in some instances, as in that of 
the Cap Trafalgar, which was sunk in single-ship 
action by the British converted liner Carmania. Yet 
this procedure proved of no effect in the war. 



24 The Achievement of the British Navy 

It would be a great mistake to regard the German 
cruiser campaign against commerce apart from the 
general distribution of German warships and the 
means taken to supply them with their requirements. 
The writer is inclined to the belief that the impotence 
of the Germans in distant waters shows that their 
Navy was not ready nor effectively prepared for the 
war. The great expenditure on the High Sea Fleet 
proved unavailing. The submarine boats did not exist 
in any considerable number. Only about twenty-seven 
or twenty-eight of them were completed in August, 
19 14, of which about a dozen were of early experi- 
mental type, fit only for local use, and the programme 
provided only for the building of half a dozen in each 
year. The German Navy possessed not more than a 
couple of big airships, and a few effective aeroplanes. 
The cruisers on foreign service were scattered about 
the world without plan. The battle-cruiser Goeben 
and the light cruiser Breslau had been detached in 
the Mediterranean during the Balkan War, and, 
according to the Greek White Book, Turkey having 
entered into alliance with Germany on August 4th, 
the two cruisers fled to the Dardanelles in conformity 
with orders received from Berlin. The Germans were 
apprehensive as to their safety, and their naval 
authorities never intended to leave them in their 
dangerous situation of isolation in an Italian port. 
The business of controlling and directing the opera- 
tions of the commerce-destroying cruisers and armed 
liners, and providing their supplies, was admittedly 
dexterously arranged by the agency of wireless, 
mainly through the means placed at disposal by 



Sweeping the Oceans 25 

German s)mipathisers in the United States, the States 
of Southern America, and other neutral countries, 
though nothing they did could withstand the steady 
pressure of sea-power. 

The most considerable German force in distant 
waters was the East Asian Squadron, under command 
of Admiral Count von Spee. It was located 
at Kiao-Chau, and its principal elements were the 
armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Sooner 
or later this squadron was bound to be defeated, as 
its commanding officer fully realised. The Japanese 
declared war on August 23rd, and the fleets of 
Admiral Baron Dewa and Admiral Kato were 
stretched out to blockade and intercept him; but he 
extricated himself very dexterously, crossed the 
Pacific, defeated Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock 
off Coronel on November ist, rounded Cape Horn, 
and was himself defeated with the loss of his whole 
squadron in the battle of the Falkland Isles on 
December 8th. One of his cruisers, the Emden, 
which had escaped the Japanese, made a great noise 
in the world. Her captain was a very capable and 
also a very gallant officer, who bombarded oil tanks 
at Madras, sank the Russian cruiser Jemtckug and 
the French destroyer Mousquet at Penang, and sent 
to the bottom seventeen British vessels, representing 
a value of £2,211,000, besides three sent into port. 
The Emden was destroyed by H.M. Australian 
cruiser Sydney at the Cocos-Keeling Islands on 
November 8th. The Karlsruhe sank vessels repre- 
senting a value of £1,662,000. 

It is not the purpose here to describe the depreda- 



26 The Achievement of the British Navy 

tions and ocean wanderings of the other German 
cruisers or auxiliary cruisers. The object is to show 
how, by the all-compassing pressure of naval power, 
they were successively destroyed. It would be folly 
to deny that there was something defective in 
the disposition of the British naval forces at the 
beginning. Admiral von Spee was at large, with two 
powerful armoured cruisers, but Sir Christopher 
Craddock was left in inferior force off the coast of 
Chile. The obsolescent battleship Canopus, which 
had inferior speed, was to join him, but did not 
reach him in time. The Australian battle-cruiser 
Australia, which would have been an extremely valu- 
able aid to Craddock's squadron, did not pursue the 
German squadron across the Pacific. 

Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher returned to the 
Admiralty as First Sea Lord on October 29th, 19 14, 
and at once set about to use the naval instrument he 
had been so largely instrumental in creating. In 
dead secrecy and with incredible speed a force was 
prepared and dispatched. Admiral Sturdee had with 
him the magnificent battle-cruisers Invincible and 
Inflexible, the armoured cruisers Kent, Cornwall, and 
Carnarvon, the light cruisers Bristol and Glasgow, and 
the armed liner Macedonia. The battleship Canopus 
was already at Port Stanley. Before anyone knew 
he had left England, he arrived at the Falkland 
Islands on December 7th, after having steamed a 
distance of 7,000 miles. The German Admiral was 
known to be approaching with the object of utilising 
the islands as a base. He arrived on the next day, 
but was taken by complete surprise, though be was 



Sweeping the Oceans 27 

conscious of impending fate, and his squadron ceased 
to exist. 

This was one of the master-strokes of the war, 
made with lightning rapidity. Strategy was seen in 
action, and thenceforward the control of the ocean 
was secured. There remained the business of round- 
ing up the enemy cruisers which were still preying 
upon shipping on the routes of commerce. Cruisers 
of sufficient force were dispatched, with instructions 
to remain at certain rendezvous, each forming a base 
upon which lighter cruisers could fall back, or to 
the support of which they could proceed. The lighter 
vessels cruised on specified curves or lines of search, 
and in this way a network was spread over the oceans 
comparable to a spider's web. Thus in due course 
every enemy cruiser and auxiliary was intercepted, or, 
conscious of the toils which were spread for her, 
abandoned her task and sought safety in the intern- 
ment of a neutral port. The Grand Fleet in the 
North Sea was the master of the situation, and made 
possible the decisive blow which was struck at enemy 
power in the oceans. 

Thenceforward the enemy was impotent in every 
sea. Not a man could he send afloat to bring aid to 
his colonies and protectorates. His distant posses- 
sions collapsed like a house built of cards. No means 
had he to interrupt the transport of troops which have 
brought about the darkening of every German 
"place in the sun." "Deutschland ist Weltreich 
geworden" it was said. But distant possessions are 
the ripe fruit which falls into the lap of the ultimate 
sea-power, and the Weltreich exists no more. By 



28 The Achievement of the British Navy 

means of sea-power it has been destroyed. The sub- 
marine is an effective weapon within its sphere, but 
no victory has ever been won by evasion, and no sea- 
power can be exercised by stealthy craft which hide 
beneath the surface of the sea. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Grasp of the Mediterranean 

sea- and land-power 

Others may use the ocean as their road. 
Only the EngHsh make it their abode; 
Our oaks secure, as if they there took root. 
We tread on billows with a steady foot. 

Edmund Waller, 1656. 

IT is important next to consider the situation in 
the Mediterranean, where sea-power is of mo- 
mentous importance to the Allies. In those 
historic waters the fate of many nations has been 
decided. They are a vital link and the highway of the 
British Empire. Between Gibraltar and Port Said 
two thousand miles of British welfare lie outrolled. 
To France, with her great possessions in Algeria, 
Morocco, and Tunis, the importance of this sea 
highway is supreme. She must, in this war 
and at all times, traverse its waters or she will be 
undone. Italy has won a great position in the 
Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and she would 
wither away and perish if either fell under enemy 
control. Trieste is her object, and she has pro- 
claimed a protectorate over Albania the better to 
establish her power in the Adriatic, and she has her 

See Map IL, at end of book. 
29 



30 The Achievement of the British Navy- 
new possessions in the Libia Italiana of Northern 
Africa. From the operations in the Mediterranean 
we shall learn something more of the relation of sea- 
power to land operations, and of the limitations of 
that power, and we shall see the allied navies of 
England, France, Russia, Itaty, and Japan in co-oper- 
ation. We shall know why the enemy made a great 
submarine stroke in the Mediterranean when every- 
thing else at sea had failed. 

The French battleship squadrons were concen- 
trated in the Mediterranean before the war. The 
cruiser squadron in the Channel, like David against 
Goliath, was willing to encounter even the whole 
German High Sea Fleet; but the French had been 
assured of British co-operation, and all danger was 
forestalled. In the Mediterranean the Goeben and 
Breslau had come west, and had bombarded Bona 
and Philippeville; but the French Admiral, going 
south from Toulon, was on their heels, and they 
fled to the east again, running the gauntlet of the 
British squadron on their way to join the Turks. 

They had intended to raid the French transports 
at sea. At this time the French were bringing their 
troops from Algeria and Tunis, amounting in all to 
nearly 100,000 men, with guns, horses, mules, stores, 
ammunition, hospitals, tent equipment, and all the 
requirements for field service, to join the main army 
in France. It was a great responsibility for the 
French Navy, increased many-fold when troops began 
to come from their eastern possessions through the 
Suez Canal. 

Failure would have meant disaster. But the 



The Grasp of the Mediterranean 31 

whole of the transport work was managed without 
the loss of a man or a horse, and was a wonderful 
success. It could hardly have taken place with so 
much security if the British squadron had not been 
in the Mediterranean, and not at all if the Grand 
Fleet had not held the German High Sea Fleet fast 
in its ports by the blockade in the North Sea. From 
that time forward for many months, until the 
Italians came into the war, on May 23rd, 191 5, the 
French squadron was employed in neutralising the 
Austro-Hungarian Fleet in the Adriatic, which did not 
dare to move. The blockading squadron was 
extended across the Strait of Otranto, with occasional 
sweeps to the northward, to control hostile operations, 
if possible, at Cattaro and along the Dalmatian coast 
up to the approaches to Pola, where the submarine 
Cmie was entangled, and lost to the Austrians. The 
French base for these operations was at Malta, but 
an advanced base was established in the island of 
Lissa. The blockade was completely successful in 
checking every effort of the Austrians to strike at the 
stream of transport in the Mediterranean, though it 
could not avail to save Montenegro or hold back the 
Austrians in their advance into Albania. No fleet 
can operate beyond the range of its guns, unless its 
flying officers carry their bombs into inland countries. 
The blockade maintained through the winter at the 
Strait of Otranto was exceedingly arduous and filled 
with peril. Enemy destroyers and submarines were 
at work, issuing from the wonderful island fringe of 
the Dalmatian coast, and the French knew their 
peril. The armoured cruiser Leon Gambetta was 



32 The Achievement of the British Navy 

sunk by submarine attack, with the loss of Rear- 
Admiral Senes, who was in command, and every 
officer on board, as well as nearly 600 men. The 
armoured cruiser Waldeck-Rousseau suffered damage 
by torpedo, and the new Dreadnought Jean Bart, with 
Admiral Boue de Lapeyrere, the French Admiralissimo 
of the combined fleets, on board, was touched, though 
only slightly injured. There were other submarine 
attacks and losses of small craft, and some losses were 
inflicted upon the enemy. British cruisers were 
attached to the French Flag during these operations, 
and they continued to co-operate with the French and 
Italians in Adriatic waters and in the ^gean, where 
the French and Allied naval forces were the guard of 
all the operations at Salonika and in the Piraeus. 
Fleets and armies have co-operated in the Mediter- 
ranean from the very beginning of the war. In May, 
19 1 7, the British monitors, which, with the converted 
cruisers, had been operating with the military expe- 
dition against the Turks and Bulgarians, appeared in 
the Adriatic, and rendered valuable aid to the Italians 
in their advance towards Trieste. The naval coali- 
tion has been a marvel of effective organisation. 

German professors have sometimes said that the 
land would sooner or later beat the sea — that 
"Moltke" would become the victor over "Mahan." 
That is the convinced opinion of the Pan-Germans, 
who say that the railway will yet prove the more 
rapid and the more secure means of transport than 
the steamship. The lines from Antwerp by Cologne 
to Vienna, and from Hamburg to Berlin, and thence 
through the very heart of Europe to Vienna, and on 



The Grasp of the Mediterranean 33 

by Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople, and from 
the opposite shore of the Bosphorus to Baghdad and 
down to the Gulf, and by a branch through Persia 
to the confines of India, were to give commercial and, 
perchance, military command of two continents. 
Enterprise by the branch railway through Aleppo 
and Damascus against Egypt, with a view to further 
developments in Africa, was related to this concep- 
tion of land-power. The measures adopted by the 
Allies for the reconstitution of Serbia, the expeditions 
to the Dardanelles and Salonika, the strong action 
taken in Greece, the naval movements on the coast 
of Syria, the operations in the Sinai peninsula and 
Palestine, and the expedition from the Persian 
Gulf to Baghdad were the answer to these gigantesque 
projects of the enemy. 

Behind them all lay the working of the fleets. 
Every class of ship and almost every kind of vessel 
employed in naval warfare has been used in one or 
other of these operations — the battleship, cruiser, 
destroyer, torpedo-boat, submarine, mother ship, aero- 
plane, aircraft-carrier, mining vessel, river gunboat, 
motor launch, mine-trawler, armed auxiliary, special 
service vessel, transport, store ship, collier, oiler, tank, 
distilling ship, ordnance vessel, hospital ship, tug, 
lighter, and a crowd of other craft. All these are 
required for the work of the Navy in the Mediter- 
ranean, as elsewhere, and they have been employed 
with a quality of seamanlike skill, enterprise, 
resource, courage, and success such as the history of 
the sea has no previous record of. The appearance 
at the Golden Horn of a British submarine, which 



34 The Achievement of the British Navy 

had traversed a Turkish mine-field, was the sign of 
new powers in naval warfare. We are lost in 
admiration of the self-sacrifice of officers and men, 
both of the regular naval service and of the mercan- 
tile marine and the fisheries, the latter being the 
heroes of the perilous work of mine-sweeping. The 
British and French navies, and the vessel representing 
the Russian Navy, acted in the closest co-operation, 
and all the naval forces worked in intimate associa- 
tion with the armies. 

Where there was failure, the failure was due to 
the inevitable limitations of sea-power, which has 
already been suggested with reference to the North 
German coast, Zeebrugge, and the Montenegrin and 
Albanian coasts. The history of the Dardanelles 
expedition will not be written here. Beginning with 
a bombardment of the entrance forts on November 
3rd, 19 14, which had little other effect than to 
stimulate the defence, continued after an interval 
of months by the great naval attacks in March, 191 5, 
in which enormous damage was done to the forts at 
the entrance and, to some extent, at the Narrows, 
but with the loss of British and French battleships 
by the action of gunfire and drifting mines, the 
enterprise concluded with the landing of the Allied 
armies in the Gallipoli peninsula. The troops were 
compelled by outnumbering forces and concentrated 
gunfire to withdraw. The combined attack should 
have been made at the beginning. The unaided 
naval attack had merely stimulated the defence. 
Here was the greatest demonstration of which 
there is record of the limitation of sea-power. 



The Grasp of the Mediterranean 35 

In the attack of such a military position naval forces 
are essential, but military operations are required if 
the desired success is to be attained. 

This is true of all the operations in the Mediter- 
ranean and elsewhere. Sea-power gave the means 
by which the army drove back the Turks from 
Egypt, and it was the support of the advance in 
Sinai and Palestine. It gave protection to the 
transports which carried troops and Army require- 
ments to Salonika and the Piraeus, patrolling the 
routes or providing convoy for the ships. The enemy 
realised his opportunity, and his submarines began 
to develop great activity in the Mediterranean. 
Certain transports were sunk, and an attempt was 
made to cut the communications of the expeditionary 
forces with their base. Some considerable losses were 
suffered thereby, but gradually systems were developed 
which gave a reasonable sense of security. The 
British, French, and Italian flotillas were employed, 
and that of Japan came to their aid. Never had such 
naval co-operation been witnessed before. We can- 
not separate the advance in Mesopotamia from the 
Mediterranean operations because the same object 
inspired both — viz., that of arresting the threatened 
development of German commercial and military 
power, through Asiatic Turkey to the Persian Gulf, 
and through Persia to the borders of India. The first 
advance to Kut-el-Amara and Ctesiphon proved dis- 
astrous because undertaken with inadequate means; 
but the Navy rendered brilliant service, and, in the 
second advance, a sufficient river flotilla of gunboats 
and transports made possible the advance to Baghdad 



36 The Achievement of the British Navy 

and beyond. The naval flotilla co-operated with most 
excellent effect in this advance, played havoc with 
enemy's craft, and recaptured H.M.S. Firefly, which 
had been lost in the retreat from Ctesiphon. 

Thus we see the Navy operating in the great 
central theatre of war and on its outlook to 
the East, exerting influence, transporting troops, 
forming the base of armies, and ever5rwhere proving 
an essential factor in all that was done. It was con- 
fronted in the Mediterranean, as elsewhere, with the 
new weapon of the submarine in very active form. 
That menace, and the campaign against it, shall be 
the subject of the next chapter. 



CHAPTER V 

Dealing with the Submarines 

My name is Captain Kidd, 

Captain Kidd. 
My name is Captain Kidd, 

Captain Kidd. 
My name is Captain Kidd, 

And wickedly I did;^ 
God's laws I did forbid, 

As I sailed. 

Old Nautical Ballad. 

HAVING seen the British Fleet and the fleets 
allied with it operating in the North Sea, 
the Oceans, and the Mediterranean, we may 
suitably turn to some special features of the duties and 
work of the Navy in the war. The submarine came 
as a sign and a portent of new developments in the 
means and the practice of warfare at sea. Regarded 
once as the weapon of the weaker Power, it was 
adopted into the naval armoury of the strongest. 
When, in 1901, under Lord Fisher's administration 
as First Sea Lord, a beginning was made in subma- 
rine construction by the ordering of five Holland 
boats, many people were taken aback. Confessedly 
the part to be played by the submarine lay at that 
time in the realm of speculation, but the British 
Navy could not afford to ignore it. Every advance 
must be watched and studied as it developed. The 

37 



38 The Achievement of the British Navy 

development has been rapid, and there are British 
submarines of astonishing powers, which have no 
equals in the world. They have made their mark 
in many a theatre of war. The French had led the 
way. The Germans followed in 1906. There is, 
indeed, the best reason to believe that Grand Admiral 
von Tirpitz, chief of the Navy Department, looked 
with no kindly eye upon submarine boats. He was a 
believer in battleships and the creator of the High Sea 
Fleet, with its battle squadrons and cruiser divisions. 
Concessions were made to the Admiralty Staff, and a 
few submarines were put in hand ; but it was not until 
the beginning of the war that Tirpitz became inspired 
with the fervour of the convert. 

Even now the relative position of the submarine 
in the category of warships is obscure. Admiral 
Sir Percy Scott thought that the knell of the battle- 
ship had been rung by its growing power; yet ships 
of the battleship class, carrying incredible armaments, 
possessing speed beyond the dreams of ante-bellum 
naval constructors, and infinitely superior for a dozen 
reasons to anything the Germans had thought of, have 
recently been completed, and will probably play a 
decisive part in any future naval engagement. 

But if the submarine has not dethroned the battle- 
ship, she has, in the hands of the enemy, done other 
remarkable things. She has struck a mortal blow 
at what many excellent people have hitherto regarded 
as the settled and accepted code of International Law; 
she has appeared as a pirate commerce-destroyer. 
Without warning and without pity she has sunk fish- 
ing vessels, tramp steamers, stately liners, and hospital 



Dealing with the Submarines 39 

ships. The code of honour is not observed by her. 
The German submarine officer has orders to run no 
risks, although in the old wars naval officers — ^who 
had no means of submerging either to attack or to 
escape — gladly ran every risk incidental to the service 
in which they were engaged. When the Lusitania was 
sunk it was explained that if the commander of the 
submarine had permitted the passengers to take to the 
boats before firing his torpedo, "this would have 
meant the certain destruction of his own vessel." 
There was no evidence that such would have been 
the case, but the risk, which implied a danger merely 
incidental to naval service, was held to justify the 
sinking of the great liner with 1,200 souls on board. 
The wildest imagination could not have conceived that 
any human being could take such a distorted view of 
right and wrong, and of the plain duty of the seaman. 
The submarine has accomplished other remarkable 
things in the war. She has converted benevolent 
neutrals into resolute enemies. She has brought the 
United States into the war in support of the Allies. 
She has transformed the mercantile marines opposed 
to her into actual fighting forces. A few merchant 
ships were armed before the war began, but now, 
because of ruthless submarine attack, the British mer- 
cantile marine is for practical purposes embodied with 
the Navy, in the sense that it is under naval control, 
is provided with means of defence, and acts directly 
under naval orders. Moreover, one-half or more of 
its shipping has been taken over by the naval service. 
The same is true of the merchant ships of the Allies. 
The German submarine has had a further effect. She 



40 The Achievement of the British Navy 

has created a whole array of means directed to her 
destruction. Countless inventors have been set at 
work, and extraordinarily ingenious methods have 
been employed with the purpose of putting an end 
to submarine activities by sinking every boat as she 
appeared. 

In the early days of the submarine it was believed 
that she might be sunk by using spar torpedoes 
fixed in swift boats, which would bear down upon the 
submarine as she submerged and explode the charge 
against her hull. But it soon occurred to seamen 
that if a swift vessel, destroyer or other, could run 
down a submarine she might more easily sink her by 
the impact of her sharp stem or a special keel. This 
method has been practised in the war, and by this 
means a number of enemy submarines have been dis- 
patched to Davy Jones's locker. There was an early 
case in which a certain destroyer, going at high speed, 
actually impaled a German submarine on her stem, 
and carried her onward, so injured that she sank. 
Another early case was that of the German submarine 
rammed and sent to the bottom off Beachy Head on 
March 28th, 19 15, by the Thordis, commanded by 
that plucky skipper, Captain Bell, who set an example 
to many. 

Another plan was to use suitable vessels in pairs, 
each pair dragging a cable connecting them, from 
which hung, on short lines, small mines to be elec- 
trically exploded when a submerged obstruction, 
probably a periscope or conning-tower, put a tension 
upon the connectiag cable. The disadvantage of 
this system was that the entrapping vessels could not 



Dealing with the Submarines 41 

travel swiftly without bringing the cable near to the 
surface, and the chance of a submarine fouling the 
cable was remote. Yet it may be conjectured that 
the features of this system may have furnished the 
germ of procedures now in use. Capture or sinking 
by the use of nets was also an early idea, probably 
suggested by the nets used by big ships at anchor for 
protection against torpedoes, and Admiral Sir Arthur 
Wilson devised a large steel net for the purpose. Pos- 
sibly this method, too, has developed into the nets 
employed in dealing with enemy submarines at the 
present time. But submarines were continually 
increasing in strength of structure, speed, and handi- 
ness, so that new systems were necessary and have 
developed with the requirements. 

What the actual methods employed by the Navy 
are cannot be explained. When Mr. Frederick 
Palmer, the American writer, visited the Grand Fleet 
he asked how the thing was done, and officers said: 
"Sometimes by ramming; sometimes by gunfire; 
sometimes by explosives; and in many other ways 
which we do not tell." M. Joseph Reinach also 
visited the Fleet, and said in the Figara that the 
submarine was pursued "by net, gun, explosive bomb, 
and other means." Squadron-Commander Bigsworth 
on August 26th, 19 1 5, destroyed a submarine off 
Ostend by dropping bombs upon her from his aero- 
plane, and there have been several other episodes of 
the same kind. When the first American transports 
were attacked in the Atlantic, bombs fitted with a 
short-time fuse were employed which burst at a 
determined depth below the surface of the sea. 



42 The Achievement of the British Navy 

The Royal Naval Air Service plays a large part in 
the anti-submarine campaign. Its seaplanes are always 
scouting over our waters and sight enemy submarines 
from afar. Flying high, they can and do discover 
submarines navigating below the surface, and by 
wireless or other signals bring destroyers or other 
craft to the scene, where by special means submarines 
are destroyed. 

Probably gunfire is the chief means by which sub- 
marines are sent to the bottom. A German submarine 
may attain complete submergence from the cruising 
trim within about three minutes; but the time may be 
longer, if she has a gun mounted, wireless rigged, and 
other top hamper. From the awash position, in which 
her speed is reduced, she may submerge in about two 
minutes. A swift destroyer, knowing the position of 
such a submarine, may advance toward her, covering 
a nautical mile within two minutes, so that she has an 
excellent chance of coming within range and putting in 
shots with effect. Gunnery is carried to a high pitch 
of proficiency in the Navy, and one destroyer may be 
mentioned which knocked out the periscope of a 
German submarine at a range of over 2,000 yards 
with her first round. There is nothing an enemy sub- 
marine likes less than to see destroyers tearing down 
towards her at high speed as she is getting in her gun, 
withdrawing her periscope, lowering her masts — often 
a disguise — and filling her tanks. Moreover, com- 
plete submergence may not be a sure protection for 
her if she is watched, for she may be destroyed by an 
explosive bomb. 

German submarines have also learned to fear 



Dealing with the Submarines 43 

armed merchantmen, which have not seldom used 
their guns with effect, sometimes compelling their 
assailants to submerge, and so evading their attack, 
and sometimes by obtaining direct hits. The 
Dunrobin in September, 191 6, carried on a lively 
action for some minutes, hitting her assailant in the 
vicinity of her conning- tower with a T.N.T. shell — 
thereby causing an internal explosion, from which 
dense smoke arose — followed by three common shell, 
each of them making a direct hit, after which the 
enemy suddenly plunged at a sharp angle, evidently 
going to the bottom. In March, 191 7, the Bellorado 
was attacked by gunfire from a submarine, whereby 
her master, chief officer, and a seaman were killed, 
while her gunners put such shot into the assailant that 
she was silenced and manifestly disabled. 

Further it is not permissible to go on describing how 
submarines are accounted for. The catalogue of 
methods is a long one. There could certainly be no 
single and decisive weapon for the destruction of this 
new engine of warfare. There is no remedy for the 
effects of gunfire, and if submarines discover targets 
possible to be attacked they will certainly attack them. 
Some surprise was expressed that the British Admir- 
alty did not at once suppress the submarine menace. 
When the submarine campaign began in February, 
19 1 5, it resulted in the sinking of a number of British 
merchantmen; but, having risen to its height, it 
declined, with fluctuations, until it was described as 
being "well in hand." The methods employed had 
been successful. Then, after several months, the 
submarines began their depredations again, carrying 



44 The Achievement of the British Navy 

them into the Atlantic and the Mediterranean with 
great violence. They also penetrated the Channel, 
though they never checked the great stream of trans- 
port for the armies between English and French ports, 
which the Navy was guarding with complete success. 

The reason for this recrudescence of submarine 
piracy was the intense energy which the Germans 
devoted to the production of standardised and 
powerful classes of submarines, whose parts were 
produced in many districts of the German Empire. 
The new boats were practically submarine cruisers, 
capable of high surface speed, which enabled them to 
overhaul slow merchantmen, and they were armed 
with powerful guns. The early enemy submarine 
carried a 1.4-inch gun, but a 2.9-inch 12 -pounder 
was provided. There is now reason to believe that 
the calibre has risen to 4.1 inches and, in the case 
of some of the more powerful boats, to 5.1 inches, 
these larger guns being shorter and lighter than the 
same guns mounted in cruisers. But obviously sub- 
marines of these classes, carrying on their work over 
wider areas and in distant places, will not be so easy 
to destroy as the smaller boats of the early submarine 
campaign, and this may account for the difficulty in 
providing a complete protection from the attack. Sub- 
marine sections have been sent overland and assem- 
bled at Trieste for the Adriatic and Mediterranean, 
and at Varna for use in the Black Sea, and also doubt- 
less at the Golden Horn or in the Gulf of Ismid. 

There is much uncertainty about the future of the 
submarine. She exercises no command at sea, and 
she makes many fruitless attacks upon armed mer- 



Dealing with the Submarines 45 

chantmen; but she is dangerous, nevertheless. The 
British Navy has devoted exhaustless energy in apply- 
ing every possible agency for dealing with hostile sub- 
marines, and its great success encourages the hope and 
belief that the scourge will yet be exterminated. De- 
stroyers, motor launches, patrolling ships of many 
classes, seaplanes, observation balloons, and other 
craft are at work every day and many of them every 
night. But whatever element of uncertainty there 
may be as to the complete success of these agencies, 
there is none in the conclusion that the submarine 
will never bring England, still less her Allies, to the 
verge of famine or anywhere near it. Scarcity of food 
is not due so much to the submarine as to the great 
demand on the world's supplies, and the enormous 
volume of shipping absorbed by the naval and mili- 
tary requirements of England and her Allies. The 
Navy, which has done such wonderful work in the 
war, is not and will not be ineffective against the sub- 
marine. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Navy and the Mine 

They sink, they slink, they seek the boat, 

Grisly horns stuck through their skin. 
Ready to sink all things that float, 

These villain boxes shaped of tin. 

The fisher sees the death therein. 
But reaches down with his long fling, 

And grasps the chain that holds them In, 
And draws the fangs they hoped would sting. 

Anon. 

THE British Navy fights for the great ideals 
of the people, acting upon the lines of old 
and loyal traditions; but, while doing so, it 
has encountered the desperate devices of the enemy, 
who has used the latest achievements of scientific 
and mechanical invention in such a manner as to 
overthrow many preconceived methods and accepted 
conventions of naval warfare. We have already 
spoken of the submarine. Now we shall see what 
the mine is, and how it is dealt with by the Navy 
and the services the Navy controls. It has been 
said, with much truth, that the essence of war is 
violence and that moderation in war is futility. It 
is also true, as we see, in the cruel operations of 
Zeppelins and bomb-dropping aeroplanes, and not 
less in the attacks of submarines, as directed by the 
Germans and their allies, that the non-military popu- 

46 



The Navy and the Mine 47 

lations suffer the horrors of war in much greater degree 
than was the case in the wars even of recent times. 

But the Germans, at the very beginning of the 
war, outraged neutral sentiment by employing osten- 
sible merchant and passenger vessels, flying neutral 
flags, and without giving warning to the neutrals, in 
the deadly work of scattering mines indiscriminately 
in the open sea on the main lines of trade. They 
acted in direct contravention of the rules of war as 
previously accepted. These disguised mining vessels 
had traversed the trade routes as if pursuing peaceful 
purposes, thus enjoying the immunities which had 
always been accorded to innocent neutral vessels, and 
yet they had wantonly endangered the lives of all 
who traversed the sea, whether neutral or enemy. 
The Admiralty were soon able to declare publicly that 
this mine-laying under a neutral flag, as well as recon- 
naissance conducted by trawlers and even by hospital 
ships and neutral vessels, had become the ordinary 
methods of German naval warfare. The later history 
of the war shows how far the Germans were prepared 
to go in casting off any restraint in their efforts to 
do injury to their enemies. They compelled the 
British Admiralty to adopt counter-measures. 

For years past the Germans had devoted unremit- 
ting attention to the study and practice of mining 
and the production of very powerful types of mines. 
In that respect they were undoubtedly ready. The 
state of war between England and Germany began 
at II p.m. on August 4th, 19 14, and on the morning 
of the next day German mines were being laid on 
the east coast of England. The Konigin Luise, a 



48 The Achievement of the British Navy 

former Hamburg- Amerika liner of 2,163 tons, was 
caught in the act, off the Suffolk coast, and was sunk 
by the light cruiser Amphion and the Third Torpedo 
Flotilla. On the next day the Amphion herself, the 
first British warship destroyed in the war, fell a 
victim to the mines she had laid. This disguised 
mine-layer had initiated a practice, which has since 
been many times followed in the war, of throwing 
mines overboard in the track of pursuing vessels. 
It was resorted to by the retreating Germans in the 
battle of the Dogger Bank. Here it may be remarked 
that the Germans have always claimed the right to 
subject every consideration to their necessity to win, 
though at The Hague Conference of 1907, Baron 
Marschall von Bieberstein, the German delegate, said 
that conscience, good sense, and the duty imposed 
by the principles of humanity would constitute the 
most effective guarantee against abuse, and he pro- 
claimed — "/e le dis a haute voix" — that German naval 
officers would always fulfil "in the strictest fashion 
the duties which emanate from the unwritten law of 
humanity and civilisation." 

Any technical description of German mines would 
be out of place here; but it may be said that generally 
they approximate to a spherical shape, and are pro- 
vided with projecting "horns," almost in the shape of 
drumsticks, concussion with which is calculated to 
break a small phial within, whose contents cause 
the detonation of the enormous charge of T.N.T. ex- 
plosive. Each mine is provided with a sinker, which 
drops to the bottom, and is attached to the mine by 
a cable or sounding-line paid out by special mech- 



The Navy and the Mine 49 

anism to any desired length, whereby the mine may 
be kept at the intended depth below the surface. 
There are other types of mines, and in particular one 
of cylindrical form, containing a prodigious quantity 
of explosive and capable of the widest destruction. 
This has probably been used only in special situations. 
The ordinary mines can be laid with great rapidity by 
a specially fitted mine-layer, provided with rotary gear, 
bringing mine after mine along a special track to the 
dropping position. The drifting mines which the 
Germans at the very beginning of the war set afloat 
in the main trade route from America to Liverpool, 
via the North of Ireland, can be laid with still greater 
rapidity. 

When mine-laying in British waters by surface 
boats was made extremely risky, or almost impos- 
sible, the Germans resorted to the employment of 
submarine mine-layers, one of which was exhibited 
in the Thames. Vessels of this class, so far as they 
are known, probably carry a maximum of twelve 
big mines in six shoots or air-locks, the lower mine 
in each shoot being released by means of a lever, 
after which the other drops into its place, ready to 
be let go in the same way. The boat exhibited in 
London and elsewhere was of a rough, rudimentary 
character, indifferently built, and her speed was prob- 
ably not more than six or eight knots. Undoubtedly 
many of the submarine mine-layers are of better type. 
They are constantly at work especially on the east 
coast of England, and some losses have resulted; but 
the effect of their operations is nearly always over- 
come by the means adopted by the Navy. 



50 The Achievement of the British Navy 

The first measure set on foot by the Admiralty- 
was to organise a system of search for suspicious 
craft, and to declare the North Sea a war area, 
within which it was dangerous for any vessel to 
navigate except through channels indicated by the 
naval authorities. The Germans replied with their 
now famous and futile blockade order of February, 
191 5. New regulations were issued from time to 
time regulating navigation through the British mine- 
fields, and the result has been, in association with the 
patrols, to exercise a very close supervision over the 
navigation in home waters. As to distant mining 
operations of the enemy, the First Lord of the Ad- 
miralty stated, on March 8th, 191 7, that they had 
been carried very far, and the P. & O. liner Mongolia, 
sunk off Bombay on June 23rd, 191 7, was not the only 
vessel mined in the Arabian Sea. From time to time 
it has been announced that mails for and from the 
East and Australia have been lost at sea. 

It is an inspiring thing to turn from this picture 
of mines and the scattering of them by the enemy 
to another picture — that of the gallant and successful 
manner in which the Navy, and the mine-trawlers 
and other vessels embodied in its service and em- 
ployed in the ceaseless patrols, have grappled with 
the deadly menace of the mine. Ever patrolling the 
British coasts, ever facing death, often speeding to 
the help of vessels mined, torpedoed, or otherwise in 
distress, the glorious men who man these craft have 
inscribed their names in letters of gold on the roll of 
British honour and fame at sea. It was a marvellous 
thing, this embodiment of the vast mine-sweeping and 



The Navy and the Mine 51 

patrolling service in the work of the Navy in the war. 
From all the coasts fishermen have come, with their 
trawlers converted from the craft of winning fish at 
sea, to the sterner work of bringing up and destrojdng 
the strange harvest of deadly mines which endanger 
all life at sea. Many a trawler has been sunk by 
contact with her fatal captures; others have been 
sunk by hostile fire and bombing by enemy aeroplanes, 
but never have the brave seamen quailed in the serv- 
ice of the country and the Allies, and in every port 
men are to be met whose craft have been sunk under 
them, and who have hastened to sea again. 

Hundreds of ships, drawn from the mercantfle 
marine and the fisheries, steam yachts, motor boats, 
armed launches, and vessels of other classes, are 
employed in such dangerous work. They share the 
trials of war, wind, and weather with the regular 
naval patrols. Sir Edward Carson, when First Lord of 
the Admiralty, directed attention to the magnificent 
work of the mine-trawlers of these patrols. The 
force employed at the beginning of the war numbered 
about 150 small vessels, but increased to 3,000 or 
more. The whole nation should understand what 
mine-sweepers were doing. "The thousands of men 
engaged in this operation are the men who are 
feeding the whole population of this country, from 
morning till night, battling with the elements as 
well as the enemy, facing dangers under the sea. A 
mine-sweeper carries his life in his hands at every 
moment, and he does it willingly." Later again he 
expressed his thanks and the thanks of the nation 
for the splendid work they had accomplished. Of 



52 The Achievement of the British Navy- 
all the seamen who had so deservedly earned the 
gratitude of the country none had had more arduous 
and dangerous duties to perform than the gallant 
fellows in the patrols. 

They have worked in reliefs day and night at sea, 
though sometimes driven to port by the fury of the 
elements, and they brave every kind of weather. As 
Admiral Bacon, commanding the Dover Patrol, has 
said, with reference to the security with which thou- 
sands of merchantmen had passed through the waters 
in his control, "no figures could emphasise more 
thoroughly the sacrifice made by the personnel of 
the patrols and the relative immunity ensured to the 
commerce of their country." They have trawled for 
mines not only in British but in distant waters. Their 
magnificent work under fire, and attacked by bomb- 
dropping aeroplanes, at the Dardanelles will never 
be forgotten. 

An American correspondent, Mr. Gordon Bruce, 
who sailed in a mine-trawler to learn its work, con- 
cluded an article in the New York Tribune in these 
words: — 

I looked at those men who go out day after day; 
who wear their lifebelts continuously; who take 
their tea on the decks while they peer over the rims 
of their cups for the death that lurks in those som- 
bre waters. I thought how fine was their devotion 
to their duty; how great a part they are playing in 
the war — out there alone, where their deeds are 
attended with no sounding of trumpets, where they 
give to their work the same quality of bravery as is 
required of the man in the trenches. And as I 
glanced at the inscription over the cabin, which read 



The Navy and the Mine 53 

"England expects every man to do his duty," I knew 
that England would not be disappointed. 

The practical methods by which the Navy and its 
brave mine-trawlers conduct their operations are of 
great interest, but description cannot go too far. 
The enemy is certainly well acquainted with all 
British methods previous to the war; but mine-sweep- 
ing systems do not stand still, but develop with the 
progress of armaments generally. Mine-trawling is 
developed from the system of trawling for fish, which 
before the war had reached a high degree of technical 
efficiency, and in the application of that system to 
their work in the war the men have attained great 
proficiency and become extraordinarily successful. 
The trawl-net varies in size with the dimensions of 
the vessel using it. An average size would be about 
100 feet in length, with a spread of from 80 to 90 
feet. The principal features in fishing trawlers are 
fore and after frameworks, with fairleaders, a towing- 
block, a powerful steam-winch, and towing-warps. A 
trawler would pay out hundreds of fathoms of heavy 
wire warp, the handling of which called for great 
skill and dexterity. It was not a very difficult thing 
to adapt this method of trawling to the sweeping for 
mines. The fishing trawler goes unaided, but in mine- 
sweeping the trawlers work in pairs, and the towing- 
warp is replaced by the sweeping-wire. Two trawlers, 
steaming abreast at a certain interval, drag a weighted 
steel hawser which, upon striking the mooring of a 
mine, brings the deadly catch to the surface, where 
it is exploded by gunfire from a destroyer or by rifle 
fire from an armed trawler or motor boat. The mine- 



54 The Achievement of the British Navy 

sweepers have encountered perils and hardships which 
have never been recorded, and fishing trawlers pursu- 
ing their peaceful occupations have often incurred 
the same risks. 

Next after the destruction of the enemy's fighting 
vessels comes the destruction of his death-dealing 
mines, and the mine-trawlers, confronted with an un- 
paralleled task, attended with extreme peril, have ren- 
dered magnificent service to England and her Allies. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Navy and Army Transport 

What of the mark? 

Ah! seek it not in England; 
A bold mark, an old mark 

Is waiting over-sea; 
Where the string harps in chorus, 
And the lion flag is o'er us, 

It is there our work shall be. 

Sir A. Conan Doyle. 

THE stupendous and scarcely calculable opera- 
tion of transporting by sea the enormous 
armies which are employed in many theatres 
of the hostilities is the index and measure of the 
greatest of all the triumphs of naval power in the 
war, namely, that of establishing and maintaining 
essential command of the sea. Against this bulwark 
the enemy's naval forces have battled in vain. The 
submarine may, in some degree and in some circum- 
stances, affect command of the sea, but it cannot 
exercise it. 

It is difficult to realise all that the transport of 
millions of men, organised as armies and provided 
with all that armies require, has meant to the Allies, 
or to bring home to ourselves a full sense of what 
the responsibilities of the Navy have been in safe- 
guarding them. The armies of Frederick and Napo- 
leon were pygmies compared with the vast hosts which 

55 



56 The Achievement of the British Navy 

are set in the field to-day. When Frederick invaded 
Silesia he had with him not more than 30,000 men. 
The motley army with which Napoleon invaded Rus- 
sia — the greatest that had ever been brought under a 
single command — did not greatly exceed 600,000 on 
a liberal computation. Wellington in the Peninsula 
never commanded 50,000 men. But in March, 191 6, 
Mr. Balfour, then First Lord of the Admiralty, said 
that 4,000,000 combatants had already been trans- 
ported under the guardianship of the British Fleet, 
with 1,000,000 horses and other animals, 2,500,000 
tons of stores, and 22,000,000 gallons of oil, for British 
use and the use of the Allies. In January, 191 7, 
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, First Sea Lord, said that 
over 7,000,000 men had been transported, together 
with all the guns, munitions, and stores they required. 
Six months later, when the United States troops began 
to arrive, the figure may be estimated to have reached 
10,000,000. 

The victory of Germany would have been swift 
and decisive if the great armies represented by these 
figures had not come to the support of France. French 
troops from Northern Africa and the East also joined 
her brave army, because transport in the Mediter- 
ranean was secure. The great army of Russia could 
have made no offensive movement if she had not 
received the immense supplies of guns, munitions, 
motors, and other material which came to her from 
abroad. Because of British supremacy at sea and the 
shipping that consequently came there, Archangel, 
from being a sleepy harbour, developed into one of 
the busiest ports on the continent of Europe. Italy 



The Navy and Army Transport 57 

could have made no headway if many of the things 
she required had not come to her by sea. Greece 
would have remained permanently on the side of the 
enemy if sea-power and the troops transported there 
had not rallied her to the Allies. The German col- 
onies would not have been occupied if fleets had not 
carried to them the troops for their subjection. Eng- 
land, by virtue of sea command guaranteed by her 
Fleet, has gathered her armies from India, Canada, 
Australia, New Zealand, and from every colony and 
possession, and has sent them to serve in France, Bel- 
gium, Greece, Gallipoli, Egypt, Palestine, Macedonia, 
Mesopotamia, and Africa. Not a soldier has gone 
afloat but a seaman has carried him on his back. 

Before we can appreciate this aspect of the work 
of the Navy in the war, we must gain some idea of 
what is implied by the military service of these armies 
in the field. It is not enough to dispatch armies. 
They must be maintained and supplied. The com- 
munications of an army are vital to its operations, 
and the communications of all the armies that England 
is employing are by sea, and are guarded by the Navy. 
It would not be an easy thing to estimate the vast 
requirements of fighting forces; but that is unneces- 
sary. They are on an infinitely greater scale, in pro- 
portion to the strength of the troops employed, than 
in any previous war. Guns are far more numerous 
and much heavier than they were. The expenditure 
of ammunition has gone beyond all anticipation, and 
a real fleet is required for its transport. Horses, mules, 
many descriptions of heavy and light ordnance and 
ammunition for them, warlike and general stores of 



58 The Achievement of the British Navy 

innumerable kinds, aeroplanes, balloons, the gigantic 
"tanks," hospitals and hospital requisites, clothing, 
food, forage, camp equipment, transport vehicles, trac- 
tion engines, pontooning, railway, telegraph, building, 
and mining material, locomotives of many kinds, pe- 
trol, and a hundred other stores and things are neces- 
sary, and they must day and night be in transit, with- 
out rest or pause. It will illustrate the gigantic nature 
of the operation if we record that between November, 
191 6, and June, 191 7, 2,000 miles of complete railway 
track were shipped, with nearly 1,000 locomotives, 
and other supplies by railway companies. Labour 
and work for a hundred different services have to be 
provided also. The United States and other countries 
have contributed enormous supplies, and, with the 
coming of the American Army, the volume of the 
ceaseless torrent — the veritable Niagara — will increase 
still more. History has no parallel for such opera- 
tions. 

This vast business being the charge of the British 
Navy and of the navies allied with it, we see how 
great an object it must be of the enemy to strike at 
the lines of supply. That they have completely 
failed would appear almost miraculous, if we did not 
know that the reasons for the failure are altogether 
of a practical character. It was inevitable that there 
should be some losses when submarines and mine- 
layers were at work, but the destruction effected 
has been a mere fraction of the whole, and the influ- 
ence upon the campaigns is entirely negligible. The 
Ministry of Munitions imports 1,500,000 tons of ma- 
terial every month. The most considerable loss due 



The Navy and Army Transport 59 

to attack has been in the matter of shell components, 
but it did not amount to more than 5.9 per cent, of 
the whole supply from the beginning of the submarine 
campaign up to June, 191 7. The most serious disas- 
ters were in the Mediterranean, where submarines 
sank the French transports Provence II. and Gallia, 
engaged in the Salonika expedition, with the loss of 
about 1,600 lives. The enemy will certainly continue 
his efforts. 

Never was a more seriously planned attempt made 
than that of June 22nd, 19 17, when General Pershing's 
American Expeditionary Force was crossing the At- 
lantic. German submarines, in considerable force, 
made two attacks upon the transports, and on both 
occasions were beaten off with every appearance of 
loss. One submarine was certainly sunk, and there 
was reason to believe that the accurate fire of the 
American gunners sent others to the bottom. For 
purposes of convenience the expedition had been di- 
vided into contingents, each composed of troop-ships 
and a naval escort designed to keep off such raiders 
as might be met with. An ocean rendezvous was 
arranged with the American destroyers then operating 
in European waters, in order that the passage through 
the danger zone might be attended by every possible 
protection. There was reason to believe that the Ger- 
mans had secret intelligence of the course taken by the 
transports to the rendezvous and of the time appointed 
for their arrival there. 

The first attack occurred at 10.30 p.m. at a point 
well on the American side of the rendezvous, in a 
part of the Atlantic which might have been presumed 



60 The Achievement of the British Navy 

free from submarines. The heavy gunfire of the 
American destroyers scattered the enemy boats, and 
five torpedoes were seen. The second attack was 
launched a few days later, against the other contingent, 
on the European side of the rendezvous. Not only did 
destroyers hold the boats at a safe distance, but their 
speed resulted in sinking at least one submarine. 
Bombs were dropped firing a charge of explosive timed 
to go off at a certain distance under water. In one 
instance the wreckage covered the surface of the sea 
after a shot at a periscope. "Protected by our high 
seas convoy destroyers and by French war vessels," 
said the Secretary of the United States Navy, "the 
contingent proceeded, and joined the others at a 
French port. The whole nation will rejoice that so 
great a peril has passed for the vanguard of the men 
who will fight our battles in France." 

This incident illustrates the method of protection 
chiefly employed by the British Navy. When the 
original Expeditionary Force was sent to France, 
the Grand Fleet was in readiness if the High Sea 
Fleet should venture to issue to sea. Cruisers, de- 
stroyers, naval aircraft, and submarines were on watch 
and guard in the North Sea and the Channel, and 
the patrol was maintained, day and night, without in- 
termission until the army had been effectively trans- 
ported. The patrol was then organised upon a greater 
scale as the transport grew in volume. The Dover 
Patrol undertook a work of the highest importance, 
and was instrumental in holding off all destroyer at- 
tacks from the eastward. Cruisers, destroyers, armed 
motor launches^ mine trawlers and drifters, and other 



The Navy and Army Transport 61 

vessels have been constantly at work, and observation 
balloons and seaplanes have never ceased their vigil. 
The triumph has been complete, the enemy subma- 
rines have never penetrated the guard, and the Chan- 
nel communications of all the armies in France have 
been made secure. There are certain features of this 
organisation which cannot be dealt with here. The 
same system has been carried into the Mediterranean 
and elsewhere, and the French, Italian, and Japanese 
navies have shared in the work. 

In this matter of transport protection the British 
Navy has rendered magnificent service to all the Allies. 
General Sir Charles Munro, after the evacuation of 
Gallipoli, said it was a stroke of good fortune for 
the Army to be associated with a service "whose work 
remained throughout this anxious period beyond the 
power of criticism or cavil," and General Sir Ian Ham- 
ilton reported that "one tiny flaw in the mutual trust 
and confidence animating the two services would have 
wrecked the whole enterprise." This is true not only 
of Gallipoli but of every place in which the Navy has 
been serving as the guard of the communications, 
and the base and support of the military forces. 

It will be understood that the Transport Depart- 
ment of the British Admiralty undertook a colossal 
work at the beginning of the war. It possessed the 
unrivalled experience gained during the South African 
War, 1899-1901, when about 275,000 men were dis- 
patched and supplied with all army requirements over 
a distance of 7,000 miles of sea and land. Then there 
was no enemy afloat, but the operation was greater 
than any previously undertaken, and evoked the ad- 



62 The Achievement of the British Navy 

miration of the world as a revelation of resource, 
energy, organisation, national spirit, good manage- 
ment, and business-like capacity. What will be said 
when the now incalculable work of the Transport De- 
partment in this war can be estimated and described? 
The inspection and selection of ships and the conver- 
sion of them for the accommodation of troops and 
horses was a great business. In 1899 it was estimated 
that a satisfactory transport should be capable of 
carrying a number of men equal to 2 5 per cent, of her 
tonnage. What is the rule now one cannot say. There 
are important considerations of ballasting, speed, coal 
consumption, and other matters in such business, and 
the removal or adaptation of existing fittings and the 
allotting of space for various purposes have occupied 
the Admiralty officers and officials. 

It was a business both of embarkation and disem- 
barkation, on both sides of the Channel, and special 
provision was required for the wounded and sick. 
The Naval Transport and Embarkation Officers have 
had a very exhausting and anxious time in taking up, 
fitting, coahng, and otherwise preparing vessels for 
sea, and in giving orders for the movements of ships 
at the ports on arrival and departure, as well as in 
providing for the safety and expedition of all embarka- 
tions of men, horses, and stores, and arranging for 
docking and like matters. They merit the gratitude 
of the country and the Allies. It may be said that in 
all the naval and commercial ports of the United King- 
dom, and in the French ports as well, work of this or 
like kind has been in progresss uninterruptedly since 
the beginning of the war. It is strictly naval work, 



The Navy and Army Transport 63 

and was set on an excellent and satisfactory footing 
by the Admiralty; but, as the war progressed, and the 
pressure grew greater, imposing additional duties on 
the Transport Department, some matters dealt with 
by certain of its branches, and concerned with ship 
construction, modification, and repair, were placed 
in charge of competent civilians. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Navy that Flies 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a 

ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue. 

Tennyson. 

FROM an account of the work of the British 
Navy in the war there must not be omitted 
some exposition of the gallant doings of the 
men of the Royal Naval Air Service. They have 
made their mark in the war, in every theatre of it, 
and no one can tell what part they will play before 
the struggle is at an end. Of some of their work 
yery little is known. They render "silent" service, 
like that of the Navy to which they belong. They 
do not always carry on their duty alone. On occa- 
sions they participate in that of the Royal Flying 
Corps of the Army. They have been associated with 
the gallant French airmen, and the Americans come 
with a new burst of energy. The Germans know 
British naval airmen at Zeebrugge and Ostend, and 
in all the country behind those places; at sea also, 
when the German raiders return from their exploits; 
and on the West front of the Army, too, where they 
go at times far behind the line, spying out the land, 
taking number and note of the enemy, dropping bombs 
on his store and ammunition dumps, disturbing all 

64 



"2, 

s 

d 1 

5 











^ 



• h 






THE CAPTURED GERMAN SUBMARINE MINE-LAYER UC5 



The Navy that Flies 65 

his rearward services, and stirring up his aerodromes 
and the nursing places, where his fledglings, whom 
they call "quirks," are taking to themselves wings 
and learning to fly. 

The Royal Naval Air Service has lent its aid to 
the Italians, has provided unpleasant experiences for 
the Bulgarians, has dropped bombs on the Turks at 
Gaza and thereabout, has rendered good service in 
the Mesopotamian business, and was invaluable in 
"spotting" for the guns which destroyed the fugitive 
German cruiser Konigsberg in the jungle-clad reaches 
of the Rufiji River. From dawn to dusk these 
knights of the air have been flying in many parts of 
the world, and night-flying is their particular pleasure 
when there is great work to be done. Their "game 
book" is very full of astounding episodes of fighting 
which, in exciting experiences, put into the shade the 
thrilling narratives which for generations have de- 
lighted the hearts of boys. Few people know the 
sleepless vigil which the naval airmen keep all round 
the British coasts, constantly flying to keep watch 
upon the enemy, to spot his submarines, to discover 
his mine-fields, and to defeat any efforts he may make 
when transports are moving at sea. Such is an out- 
line of the occupations and duties of the Royal Naval 
Air Service. 

There was an "Air Department" at the Admiralty 
before the war, and a Naval Wing of the Royal 
Flying Corps with its "Central Air Office," its Flying 
School at Eastchurch, and seaplane and aeroplane 
stations at six places on the coasts, as well as airships 
at Famborough and Kingsnorth. At the Royal inspec- 



66 The Achievement of the British Navy 

tion at Spithead of the great mobilised Fleet, just 
before the war, naval aeroplanes, seaplanes, and air- 
ships gave a fine display. Development was rapid, the 
Royal Naval Air Service came into independent ex- 
istence, and there is now the Fifth Sea Lord at the 
Admiralty charged with the supervision of the Royal 
Naval Air Service, and representing it on the Air 
Board. 

Some of the most useful work of the Royal Naval 
Air Service is in "spotting" for the guns of the 
Warships. Its officers made a methodical photo- 
graphic survey of the coast from Nieuport to the 
Dutch frontier early in the war to assist the monitors 
which were then bombarding the coast, and to observe 
and correct their fire. They worked from a height 
of about 12,000 feet, constantly observing the devel- 
opment of the enemy's gun emplacements, all in de- 
spite of hostile aeroplanes and shells. That survey has 
been continued, and the result is the finest thing in 
aerial cartography which has ever been achieved. 

It will illustrate this part of the special work of 
the seaplanes if we describe how they began, which 
we are enabled to do by a lively-witted official scribe, 
who examined the records of their operations, and 
has given his impressions: — 

"I can't see where they're pitching," said the 
Navy-that- Floats, referring to the shells of the mon- 
itors bursting twelve miles away. "What about 
spotting for us, old son?" "That will I do," replied 
the Navy-that- Flies. "And more also. But I shall 
have to wear khaki, because it's done out here; by 
everybody, apparently." 

"Wear anything you like," replied the Navy-that- 



The Navy that Flies 67 

Floats, "as long as you help us to hit those shore- 
batteries. Only — because you wear khaki (the 
Royal Naval Air Service does not usually wear 
khaki) and see life, don't forget you're still the same 
old Navy, as it was in the beginning, is now, and 
ever shall be." 

The Navy-that-Flies added "Amen," and said 
that it wouldn't forget. Wherever its squadrons 
were based they rigged a flagstaff and flew the 
White Ensign at the peak. They erected wooden 
huts and painted them Service grey, labelling them 
"Mess-deck," "Ward-room," "Gun-room," etc., as 
the case might be. They divided the flights into 
port and starboard watches, and solemnly asked 
leave to "go ashore" for recreation. They filled in 
shell-holes and levelled the ground for aerodromes; 
they ran up hangars and excavated dug-outs — 
whither they retired in a strong silent rush (the 
expression is theirs) when the apprehensive Boche 
attempted to curtail their activity with bombs. 

Not all the good work of the Royal Naval Air 
Service in its co-operation with the Fleet comes into 
public notice. It rendered excellent service at the 
Dardanelles, the seaplane carrier Arc Royal being 
present. There were many fine achievements, in- 
cluding the bombing of a transport in the Straits by 
Flight-Commander C. H. K. Edmonds, R.N. Sea- 
planes may take the place of scouting cruisers, as the 
eyes of the Fleet, and relieve destroyers of some of 
their scouting duties. What would Nelson not have 
given for the help of seaplanes when he was crying 
out for frigates, and was groping for the French in 
the Mediterranean in 1798, and came unknowingly 
within a short distance of them; or, again, when, in 
1805, they eluded him off Toulon? Intelligence of 



68 The Achievement of the British Navy 

the movements of our enemy is of the utmost impor- 
tance to officers commanding at sea, and this is the 
service which the naval airmen have been rendering. 

At the beginning of the war the Germans enjoyed 
an advantage in the possession of some dirigible 
airships, which sailed in calm airs, unimpeded, over 
the North Sea, surveyed its full extent, and reported 
what they saw to the German naval authorities. 
Their number rapidly increased. Thus the British 
Fleet was to a certain extent hampered in its opera- 
tions. Now the situation is changed. The enemy's 
airships know the peril of coming within range of 
anti-aircraft guns, and they dread the "hornets" which 
carry special means of setting them on fire. There 
are British airships, too, and observation captive bal- 
loons, fixed and towed, as well as seaplanes, main- 
tained in adequate numbers. The seaplane played a 
useful part in the battle of the Jutland Bank, and 
craft of the class will astonish the enemy in any sub- 
sequent naval engagement. 

The dropping of bombs by the seaplanes or aero- 
planes of the Royal Naval Air Service has become 
the most prominent of its activities. The machines 
are of great power, and, acting in numbers, they 
have been able to drop an enormous weight of bombs 
on the enemy positions, particularly in the districts 
behind the coast of West Flanders. Within the space 
of four or five months 70 tons of explosives were 
dropped on the German aerodromes in Northern Bel- 
gium. Brave naval airmen in July, 191 7, from a height 
of 800 feet, dropped bombs on the Goeben and other 
enemy warships at the Golden Horn, and hit the Turk- 



The Navy that Flies 69 

ish War Office also. In this work the young officers 
— for the service demands youth — have given proof 
of exceeding keenness. It would be difficult to cata- 
logue the expeditions of the naval airmen on the Bel- 
gian coast. They have assisted in most important 
operations. 

How far such work may be continued, to what 
range carried, or what will be the full effect, we do 
not know. The Navy-that-Flies will leave nothing 
undone that is capable of accomplishment. It has 
operated in association with the work of French flying 
men on many occasions, at the bombardment of Zee- 
brugge and elsewhere. It will find a powerful co- 
worker in the new and gallant allies who are bringing 
all their force to bear from beyond the Atlantic. The 
United States air service will develop with extraordi- 
nary rapidity, and its co-operation will be warmly wel- 
comed by British naval airmen. So abundant is the 
confidence of Americans, so strong and virile their 
faith in themselves, that some of them look to the 
aeroplane to end the war. Rear- Admiral Bradley A. 
Fiske has demanded an immediate naval attack on the 
German fleet and submarine bases in the Baltic by a 
monster fleet of aeroplanes and seaplanes. He believes 
that the importance of naval aerial operations is not 
sufficiently realised by the Allies and that Essen may 
be destroyed by bombardment from the air. 

The field of speculation does not fall within the 
scope of this little book, the object of which is to 
illustrate the work of the Fleet and its associated 
services in all the theatres of war. The Royal Naval 
Ail Service is still young, and has undoubtedly a 



70 The Achievement of the British Navy 

great future. Already it has proved a valuable auxil- 
iary. It has assisted in the important business of pro- 
viding complete strategical observations. It has aided 
the work of the commercial blockade, in making more 
easy on many occasions the operations of the much- 
tried examination service. Undoubtedly the trans- 
port of the armies and their stores across the Channel 
and in many seas, which was the subject of the last 
chapter, would have been conducted with less cer- 
tainty, and perhaps with less confidence, if it had not 
been for the active co-operation, as the eyes of the 
Fleet, of the naval flying men. The long-range gun- 
nery of warships against permanent fortifications, both 
at the Dardanelles and on the Belgian coast, has gained 
in accuracy from the observation by the aircraft of 
the Navy. 

This subject might have been pursued further, 
but enough has been said to show that, among the 
agencies employed by the British Fleet in the accom- 
plishment of the supreme duties which it exercises for 
the safety of the country and the support of the Al- 
lies, the Royal Naval Air Service holds an important 
place. It has evoked enthusiasm among its officers, 
who have maintained in a high degree, in many a bat- 
tle in the air, the fearlessness, resource, and daring of 
the Naval Service to which they belong. 



CHAPTER IX 

Officers and Men of the Navy 

Sailor, what of the debt we owe you? 

Day or night is the peril more? 
Who so dull that he fails to know you, 

Sleepless guard of our island shore? 
Safe the corn to the farmyard taken; 

Grain ships safe upon all the seas; 
Homes in peace and a faith unshaken — 

Sailor, what do we owe for these? 

The late Viscount Stuart. 

NO picture of the war work of the British 
Navy could be complete without some ac- 
count of its officers and men. From what 
has already been said, the nature of the qualities 
demanded of them will have been realised. In the 
general direction of the Navy by the Admiralty there 
have been required calm reflection, profound insight, 
strategic imagination, sound and swift judgment as 
to the full use and the yet ill-understood limitations 
of sea-power, an abundant spring of action, and the 
unflinching resolution to give effect to the utmost to 
the striking and controlling force of the naval arm. 
In the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet there 
was needed the high ability to administer and exercise 
the command, to inspire officers and men of every rank 
and rating in the Fleet with zeal, efficiency, and devo- 
tion, as well as sleepless vigilance in the long waiting 

71 



72 The Achievement of the British Navy 

for the enemy, and instant readiness for action at all 
times. The Commander-in-Chief does not work alone. 
He has a staff who collaborate in these duties and give 
effect to his plans; and admirals secondary in com- 
mand, who have no light task in directing the work 
and operations of the larger elements of the Fleet. Sir 
John Jellicoe, who was appointed to the Grand Fleet 
at the beginning of the war, was a master of the high 
attainments required for his office, and it was he who 
created the base of his operations, organised all the 
agencies of his command, and exercised that command 
with consummate ability. The instrument he had 
shaped and handled so capably fell to the charge of 
Sir David Beatty, a most gallant officer, eminently 
fitted to use it, whose temperament is the very spirit 
of action, and yet who forms his plans in the mould 
of cool reflection. Happily for the British Navy, the 
fire of action is mingled in its officers with the ice of 
thought. They know when to strike, and when they 
strike they strike hard. 

Great responsibilities have rested on the captains of 
His Majesty's ships. They showed in the Jutland bat- 
tle, in which they were tried by the searching test 
of decisive action, that they possessed the ability to 
inspire and discipline their men, and to put forth the 
maximum of the fighting power of the ships. Officers 
in detached command away from the Fleet have ren- 
dered very great services. The junior officers are be- 
yond praise. By universal testimony, their devotion, 
courage, and ever-ready professional skill, in every 
test of emergency and endurance, have never been ex- 
celled. The officers of the destroyers are men above 



Officers and Men of the Navy 73 

price. The commanders of submarines, who have even 
carried their enterprise into the Baltic, and risked the 
perils of mine and gun in the narrow waters of the 
Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, are officers who have 
won new laurels for the Fleet. 

The men of the lower deck, wherever they serve, 
give daily proof of the bravery, hardihood, cheerful- 
ness, and long endurance which have always been 
the qualities of British seamen. Let Sir John Jellicoe 
speak of them as he knew them: — 

Nothing can ever have been finer than the cool- 
ness and courage shown in every case where ships 
have been sunk by mines or torpedoes; discipline 
has been perfect, and men have gone to their deaths 
not only most gallantly, but most unselfishly. One 
heard on all sides of numerous instances of men giv- 
ing up on these occasions the plank which had sup- 
ported them to some more feeble comrade, and I 
feel prouder every day that passes that I command 
such men. During the period of waiting and watch- 
ing they are cheerful and contented, in spite of the 
grey dullness of their lives. 

It would not be difficult to single out instances 
from the records of the war of constructive power in 
thought, and sound and swift judgment in action, as 
well as of splendid courage, enterprise, dash, and 
resolution — call it what you will — in the crisis of 
battle and in moments of stress, exhibited in a manner 
rarely exampled in naval warfare. The British Fleet 
has been rich in the mental endowments of its officers, 
showing them to possess grasp and insight, and moral 
force, to dominate hesitation and sustain action in the 
tremendous emergencies of battle and when confronted 



74 The Achievement of the British Navy 

with the most formidable responsibilities. Excite- 
ment has never carried them away. Judgment has 
worked through all their endeavours as, in the long 
watches and waiting, it has sustained them. 

Eulogy is not required. Nothing that has been 
said exceeds the merits of officers and men. It is 
right that these things should be understood. The 
man is more than the machine, and the finest fleet 
and most complete material equipment are dead and 
inert without the living power of the officers who com- 
mand, and the men who man the ships and vessels of 
every class. It is they who have done and are doing 
the work of the Navy in the war. They, and not their 
ships, have given security to the British Isles, have 
kept the seas and oceans open for the Allies, have safe- 
guarded every interest afloat, and have worked and 
are working, day and night, to defeat the purposes of 
the enemy. 

We now turn to a consideration which is of para- 
mount importance for a right understanding of the 
Navy's work in the war. England is the support 
of all her Continental Allies. If she should suffer or 
lose her power of supplying them with armies and 
arms, or should weaken in her offensive, the Allies 
would collapse. This is a fact of primary impor- 
tance. The Germans realise it fully. They hesitate 
at nothing in their efforts to strike at England. They 
publicly declared that they would reduce her by fam- 
ine. They struck at her mercantile marine, not merely 
at ships which were armed and engaged in the naval 
service in such large numbers, but at the ordinary 
cargo vessels, including neutral vessels carrying Brit- 



Officers and Men of the Navy 75 

ish supplies, and at fishermen pursuing their regular 
avocations, who, under The Hague Conventions, were, 
with their boats, tackle, rigging, gear, and cargoes, to 
be exempt from capture, and still more from destruc- 
tion. Of the officers and men of these services we 
must speak also. It became necessary, in the condi- 
tions which had arisen, to bring the whole mercantile 
marine under naval direction and orders, and practi- 
cally it is embodied with the Navy, and provided for 
the most part with armaments for defence, and closely 
in touch with a great protective organisation. 

When Mr. Balfour was First Lord of the Admiralty, 
speaking in the House of Commons on March 7th, 
191 6, he directed special attention to this aspect of 
naval work, not merely to the service of ships flying 
the White Ensign, but to that of transports and of 
merchant and cargo vessels, and their officers and 
men, conveying imports and exports, and the supplies 
required by the Allied armies. "On them," he said, 
"we depend, not less than on our armed forces, for 
maintaining the necessary economic basis upon which 
all war must ultimately be waged." There were, as 
he said, thousands of officers and men whose ships had 
been sunk under them by mine and submarine, and yet 
who had cheerfully signed on again, and were not to 
be driven from their ancient heritage of the sea. 
England depends upon her mercantile marine for her 
national existence. To a great extent, her food and 
raw materials are in its charge; and it also brings 
without ceasing hundreds of thousands of tons of mu- 
nitions of many kinds required by the Allies. When, 
therefore, we estimate the work of the Navy in the 



76 The Achievement of the British Navy 

war, we must give to the merchant branch of the Sea 
Service the position it deserves, as an absolute and 
primary necessity to England and her Allies. 

The nobility of the work carried on by the officers 
and men of the merchant service and the fishermen, 
whether in armed ships, mine trawlers, or cargo ves- 
sels, is a dominant note of the war. Their heroism 
has been conspicuous, and, as was stated by Admiral 
Sir Henry Jackson, when he was First Sea Lord of 
the Admiralty, the facility with which they learned 
to carry out their duties as part of a trained fighting 
force was extraordinary. "The Allied nations," he 
said, "owe them a deep debt of gratitude for their 
response, as well as for their indomitable pluck and 
endurance." "There is no room in the Navy for any- 
thing but the most sincere admiration and respect for 
the officers and men of the mercantile marine," said 
Sir John Jellicoe. They had practically become a 
part of the fighting force, sharing in the work of the 
Navy in the war, and their courageous conduct and 
unflinching devotion to duty have gained the testimony 
of naval officers everywhere, not only in the British 
service, but in the Allied navies which have come 
into contact with them. Of the magnificent service 
of the mine-trawlers we have spoken in a previous 
chapter. 

Let this chapter conclude with an appeal to Eng- 
land and her Allies to remember the great and endur- 
ing services of British seamen. They do not often 
speak of one another. Sometimes, as by a flash, as 
when Sir John Jellicoe wrote of his men, the truth is 
revealed. It was that taciturn old officer, Sir John 



Officers and Men of the Navy 77 

Jervis, who said of Troubridge that he had "honour 
and courage as bright as his sword." The torch is 
handed on from one officer to another. There are 
many qualities among them. The fire of Drake meets 
the resolute gravity of Blake; the long reflection of 
Kempenfelt is the foil to the fierce glow of Nelson. 
The tradition is continuous. Sir John Jellicoe could 
find no words to do justice to his officers and men 
in the day and night actions of the Jutland Battle. 
The glorious traditions of the past were worthily 
upheld. Sir David Beatty showed his fine qualities of 
gallant leadership, high determination, and correct 
strategic insight. Great qualities were manifested by 
every rank and rating. Down in the engine-rooms, 
seeing nothing of the battle, men were working like 
Titans, and some ships reached speeds which they had 
never before attained. This was great service for 
England and her Allies. 

There is sometimes a tendency to forget — to lose 
proportion, also — in censuring seamen for not doing 
what the power of the sea alone can never achieve. 
Howe was burned in effigy in London almost at the 
very time when he was fighting his glorious battle 
of Quiberon Bay, braving the perils of rocks which 
were charted and known, and not, be it noted, of 
submarines and mines which are invisible and un- 
known. As the sarcastic songster wrote at the time: 

When Hawke did bang 

Monsieur Conflans, 
You sent us beef and beer; 

Now Monsieur's beat, 

We've naught to eat, 
Since you have naught to fear. 



78 The Achievement of tKe British Navy 

And so Nelson spoke. "I will only apply," he said, 
"some very old lines wrote at the end of some former 
war: 

"Our God and sailor we adore 
In times of danger — not before! 
The danger past, both are alike requited: 
God is forgotten, and the sailor slighted 1" 

Now, the object of this book is to show what are 
the services of the British Navy to England and to 
the Allies. Its influence has been visible throughout 
the world, working everywhere with unexampled suc- 
cess. It operates solely because of the qualities and 
sacrifices of its officers and men. To them a high 
tribute must be paid. 



CHAPTER X 

What the British Navy Is and What It Fights 
For 

Where shall the watchful sun, 

England, my England, 
Match the master-work you've done, 

England, my own? 
When shall he rejoice agen 
Such a breed of mighty men 
As come forward, one to ten, 
To the song on your bugles blown, 

England — 
Down the years on your bugles blown? 

W. E. Henley, 

ANTAGONISM between England and Germany 
became the central fact in the international 
situation many years before the war. There 
seemed to be a fundamental antithesis between the 
ideals of the two peoples. The freedom of the English- 
man, guaranteed to him by sea-power, appeared ef- 
feminate and undisciplined weakness to the German; 
the freedom of the German, guaranteed to him only by 
the military strength of his autocratic State, was 
regarded as feudal dependence by the Englishman. 
Not to bring about a conflict, but to avert one — or, 
if the worst came to the worst, to engage in one with 
success — was the motive of British policy. There 
was no visible ground for German aggression, but 
deep-seated antagonism was the element of danger 

79 



80 The Achievement of the British Navy 

which successive Premiers and Foreign Ministers had 
had to take account of in appraising their country's 
future, and, with the guidance of their colleague at 
the Admiralty, who based his judgment on that of 
his naval advisers, they had obtained the means to 
build up the Fleet, which was to be the country's 
and Empire's defence. 

Armageddon was foreseen, though there was hope 
against hope that, in the great crisis, the dire struggle 
might be averted. It was known that Belgium and 
France would have need of England if the dogs of 
war were let slip. Many soldiers and writers had 
pointed out that Belgium would become the inevitable 
pathway of aggression. German writers had declared 
it an injury that the Congress of Vienna had not es- 
tablished Germany on the North Sea, and Arndt had 
expressed the ardent desire of the German heart to re- 
conquer the great western rivers, implying the domi- 
nation of the seas. There were dangers in these lesser 
countries. They were full of possibilities. Qui trop 
embrasse mal etreint. Belgium would cry aloud for 
English help. As to Italy, it was difficult to believe 
that she could hold to her compact with the Central 
Powers. Russia, it was known, would be against 
them. Thus in all her naval efforts, long before the 
war, England, while guarding her own interests, was 
working and building up her naval strength, in con- 
scious knowledge of the duty she might one day have 
to her friends who have now become her Allies. This 
is a very important point, and it leads to a brief 
survey of great sacrifices and unstinted efforts which 
Englishmen have made in the past. 



> fm.r,|-i|^-«rii\^f|^--' 




f^^L 




What the British Navy Fights For 81 

The Fleet that went into the war was the most 
powerful, best organised, and best equipped in every 
essential particular in the world. Yet, for a very 
long anterior period, Englishmen had remained un- 
conscious of what they owed to the Fleet. They had 
fought brilliant campaigns in China, Afghanistan, In- 
dia, Burma, the Crimea, Abyssinia, and elsewhere, in 
which the Navy was a most essential factor, though 
it had scarcely appeared in- the public eye. It was 
therefore from a low ebb that the British Navy rose to 
the high-water mark of the war. It was not until about 
the year 1882 that the tide began to turn, driven for- 
v/ard by the lively breeze of a very useful agitation, 
in which the late Mr. W. T. Stead took a prominent 
part, and which is believed to have been inspired by 
the present Lord Fisher and the late Mr. Arnold Fors- 
ter. A great shipbuilding scheme was put in hand in 
1889. Ever since that time, under far-seeing First 
Lords and First Sea Lords of the Admiralty, the task 
of asserting British naval supremacy has gone for- 
ward. Expenditure on the Navy mounted from £31,- 
000,000 in 1901 to £51,500,000 in 19 14, which latter 
was thought a monstrous figure; but it was not a 
penny too much for the great interests which had to 
be safeguarded. 

Battleships of increasing power, cruisers of many 
classes, destroyers, submarines, and auxiliaries were 
built. Lord Fisher came to the Admiralty as First Sea 
Lord in 1904, and during the subsequent six years an 
enormous work was carried on. The battleships cul- 
minated in the Dreadnoughts^ — that class of ships 
with a main armament of all big guns — the cruisers 



82 The Achievement of the British Navy 

in the battle-cruisers, destroyers grew more numerous 
and of much greater power, submarines were devel- 
oped in range and sea-keeping qualities. None of 
these types have stood still. The Dreadnought de- 
veloped into the Super-Dreadnought, and the latter 
has developed mto the ships of powers before un- 
dreamed of, which no one has yet described. The sub- 
marine has been changed out of recognition, and no 
one suspects what these British vessels can and will 
do when "The Day" really comes. 

All these mechanical developments of the Fleet, 
which are so essential at the present time, grew out 
of the impetus given in and after the year 1904. 
But that was not the only thing which placed the 
country in such a position of advantage at the begin- 
ning of the war. The battle-fleet and cruiser squad- 
rons had been reorganised to coincide with the needs 
of the Empire, owing to the shifting of the stress of 
naval power from the Atlantic and the Channel to the 
North Sea. Some squadrons in distant waters were 
reduced in strength to correspond with the require- 
ments, and non-fighting ships — vessels too weak to 
fight and too slow to run away — were brought home 
from distant seas, and their officers and men were 
made available for modern ships. A system of nu- 
cleus crews was adopted for the reserve ships to facili- 
tate mobilisation and to make sure that the ships 
would be really fit for sea. Before that time the whole 
Fleet had been pivoted on the Mediterranean, and a 
British warship was rarely seen in the North Sea. By 
progressive steps the naval front was changed from 
the South to the East. On the east coast of the 



What the British Navy Fights For 83 

United Kingdom destroyer and submarine flotillas 
were based on ports prepared for them. A great dock- 
yard was erected at Rosyth, and all along the coast 
naval bases were developed, and every preparation 
was made for the possibility of war. These were 
developments of great significance, and the immense 
and growing strength of the British Fleet justified 
the French in concentrating their battle squadrons in 
the Mediterranean, and leaving at Brest and in the 
Channel only a division of cruisers, supported by flo- 
tillas. 

Fleets of warships are meant to fight when the 
need for fighting comes; but there was no affront to 
Germany, no cause for resentment or agitation, in the 
concentration of the main strength of the British 
Fleet in such places, and with such bases, that they 
could carry their power into the North Sea. Force 
attracts force in strategy as in physics, and the growth 
of the German High Sea Fleet at Wilhelmshaven, 
with the great sea canal thence to Kiel on the Baltic, 
inevitably brought about the British concentration. 
How magnificently advantageous was the position se- 
cured has already been shown. In an earlier chapter 
it has also been explained that by the strategic posi- 
tion occupied by the Grand Fleet, and the grip held 
on the entrance to the Channel at Dover, the North 
Sea became strategically a closed sea — a mare clausum. 

This fact, which is a fact of geography as well as 
of strategic concentration, has made the enemy restive 
and resentful. We are described as the "tyrants of 
the seas,'^ and the "freedom of the seas" became a 
catchword of the Germans. Every ruler who has felt 



84 The Achievement of the British Navy 

the hard pressure of British sea-power, whether his 
name was Louis, or Napoleon, or Wilhelm, has, per- 
haps inevitably, taken this line in denouncing us to 
neutrals and endeavouring to array neutrals against us. 
In an earlier stage of the present war this was the 
consistent plea of German statesmen. But when they 
instructed their sea officers to sink the Lusitania and 
many other ships, and when they threatened with dis- 
aster neutral ships which approached the British Isles, 
they became themselves the tyrants of the sea in a very 
real sense, and they thus arrayed the United States 
and other States against themselves, and brought a new 
Armada to strengthen the already superior British 
Fleet. 

The war is a fight for freedom. The British Navy 
is fighting, and glad to have the Allied navies fighting 
in co-ordination with it, for the liberation of oppressed 
nations and countries from military domination. 
Command of the sea implies no restriction of naviga- 
tion. It exists only in war time. In time of peace 
the British Navy guaranteed the freedom of the seas, 
and will guarantee it again when the war is at an end. 
We cannot do better than quote on this question what 
that distinguished American writer Admiral Mahan 
said: — 

Why do English innate political conceptions of 
popular representative Government, of the balance 
of law and liberty, prevail in North America from 
the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific? Because the command of 
the sea at the decisive era belonged to Great Britain. 
In India and Egypt administrative efficiency has 
taken the place of a welter of tyranny, feudal strug- 



What the British Navy Fights For 85 

gle, and bloodshed, achieving thereby the compara- 
tive welfare of the once harried populations. What 
underlies this administrative efficiency? The Brit- 
ish Navy, assuring in the first place British control 
and thereafter communication with the home coun- 
try, whence comes the local power without which 
administration everywhere is futile. What, at the 
moment when the Monroe doctrine was proclaimed, 
insured beyond peradventure the immunity from 
foreign oppression of the Spanish-American colonies 
in their struggle for independence? The command 
of the sea by Great Britain, backed by the feeble 
Navy but imposing strategic position of the United 
States, with her swarm of potential commerce-de- 
stroyers, which, a decade before, had harassed the 
trade even of the Mistress of the Seas. 

In concluding, therefore, we see how the British 
Navy, having served Great Britain and the British 
Empire so efficiently and so well in every interest 
and possession, fighting constantly against every 
stealthy device of the enemy, has served the Allies 
not less well and worthily. And we discover, too, 
that the Navy is ever friendly to neutral Powers, 
and that the command of the sea which it exercises 
in the war is the panoply of freedom and liberty 
throughout the world. 




I. THE CENTRE OF SEA POWER: THE NORTH SEA 




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II. THE GRASP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN— LAND AND SEA POWER 



BOOKS TO BE READ NOV, 



THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME By John Buchan 

"A clear and brilliant presentation of the whole vast maneuver and its tactical 
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MY HOME IN THE FIELD OF HONOUR By Frances Wilson Huard 

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